


Break the Cycle

by waywardangel (leviarty)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canonical (Temporary) Character Deaths, Coming Out, Dean Winchester being a dad all over the country, Dean Winchester is Claire Novak's Parent, Dean Winchester is Jack Kline's Parent, Dean Winchester-centric, Demisexual Castiel (Supernatural), Episode Related, Explicit Sexual Content, Introspection, Jack Kline and Claire Novak are Like Siblings, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Minor Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Linear Narrative, Parent Dean Winchester, Past Dean Winchester/Other(s), Protective Dean Winchester, Quote: Family Don't End With Blood (Supernatural), Slow Burn, Sort Of, cause there is some of both, most of it's non-explicit tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:13:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviarty/pseuds/waywardangel
Summary: History was doomed to repeat itself, especially where Winchesters were concerned.But family meant more to Dean than anything else.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 85





	1. Down the Road Some

**Author's Note:**

> As much as this is a destiel slow burn, it is more a story of Dean's life, and the family he's made along the way. This fic mostly follows canon, focusing on things from Dean's perspective. Some chapters are merely a rehashing of canon, while other chapter dive into the space between scenes.
> 
> All chapter titles are from [Radio Company](https://open.spotify.com/artist/3qBdT7NKSOBogHhGiUVLiV?si=zEfwdrGjRXmot5h9nzR3NQ) songs

Dean had known he liked guys since he was fourteen. Growing up in the nineties though, it wasn’t exactly something people talked about, especially not in their family, so he just _didn’t_. He liked girls too, girls were _great_ , so he focused on that.

Not that he had ample opportunities to pursue either at that point. He was the goofy kid who usually rolled into town mid-semester and rolled back out a month later. They were always on the road, never staying anywhere long enough to make an impression. He never really made friends, or girlfriends, or boyfriends. He never had any long-term fixtures in his life of any kind. Just Sam, and Dad, and the car.

His first time with another dude was when he was 18. It was nothing like being with a woman—Lincoln was bigger than Dean, firm and muscular in all the places women were soft—but enjoyable just the same. They were both young and inexperienced, but despite their fumbling and awkwardness, it was still awesome. 10 out of 10, would bang again.

Except that, the whole time, there was this little fear in the back of his head, that Dad was going to bust through the door and catch them at any second. Even if John was 3 states away on a case.

In truth, he wasn’t certain how his dad would react if he found out. He’d never given his father any reason to suspect anything, and it wasn’t like they ran into a lot of openly gay folks. Still, he knew how John could be, knew that if he ever found out… Dean could be disowned and he’d never see his dad and, and Sammy…

It wasn’t worth the risk.

So he squashed it all down. He chased after girls, ignored all his thoughts about guys, and said things like “I don’t swing that way” so many times over the years that… he almost started to believe it himself.

He was 22 when Sam up and left. He should’ve seen it coming—he and Dad were always butting heads, and Sammy always liked school more than hunting, and, hell, there had been times when even Dean had thought about leaving. But he never did. He wouldn’t have survived in that world.

He’d never been particularly good at making friends—there was never much opportunity to—and the things he was good at, really good at, didn’t matter out there. Hunting was his only life skill. He was, of course, reasonably good at cooking and fixing cars and not much else. It didn’t exactly open career doors. And more to the point, how could he drop everything he knew about the real world, and just… pretend monsters didn’t exist?

How was Sammy doing it?

He did, on occasion, wonder.

He wouldn’t call it daydreaming, or even fantasizing; it never got that far. But he did wonder what ‘normal’ might look like for him. Could he settle down with a nice girl—or guy—and buy a house, have a family?

Even if any of those things were in the cards for him, he felt too young to even consider it. ‘Family’ meant him and Dad now.

Of course, Dad still ditched him to work plenty of cases on his own, as if Dean was still just a kid who couldn’t handle his own.

The car was his now; John had given it to him, the closest thing to an apology he ever got, though he still wasn’t sure what it was an apology for. But he loved that car, and he didn’t really care what the reason was. The car was his. It was home.

And if John wasn’t interested in hunting with him, fine. He could hunt just fine on his own.

It wasn’t like he meant to drag Sammy out of retirement, honest. If Sam was happy in whatever life he’d managed to fake his way into, then Dean was genuinely happy for him. He was content with a couple phone calls a year, as long as Sam was happy.

This was a lie, of course. Dean hated that they hardly talked, but they didn’t know _how_ to talk anymore. Their lives were lived in different universes, they didn’t have anything in common except their history.

So yeah, Dean accepted the distance in their relationship, and though he wanted to just hang out with his little brother once in a while, he didn’t.

But Dad had a regular schedule, and had missed not one, but _three_ check-ins. None of the usual contacts had heard from him. He was just _gone_.

And yeah, okay. Dean could’ve gone looking on his own. But he didn’t want to for two reasons: first, he was terrified of what he might find, and second…

He just really wanted to see Sam again.

But then Jess died, in exactly the same way as Mom. And Sam was hunting with him again, and even though what happened was awful, and he felt terrible about it, he was still glad to not be alone.

And then Dad died. And it sucked.

But somehow, they got through it.

Losing Sam though…

It was unacceptable.

Without Sam, he had nothing.

The decision was easy, really.

Sometime during the Dean Winchester ’07 Farewell Tour, he stopped hiding from the part of himself that was into guys. He didn’t stop chasing women, but he did, on occasion, find himself walking into gay bars, hitting up strip clubs with male performers, and occasionally, hooking up with dudes.

No big deal.

It was his last chance to embrace this whole thing, and it wasn’t like Dad could catch him and disown him. Sam… well, it wasn’t like they ever talked about it, Dean sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up, but he liked to think that Sammy wouldn’t care.

Besides, if he was going to Hell anyway, he might as well earn it.

Lisa Braedon, and Rhonda Hurley had been among the most memorable relationships Dean had had, if either could be considered a relationship. Both trysts had been years and years ago, but he had fond memories of both, and revisiting either of them was definitely on his bucket list, especially now that he was hurtling rapidly towards his expiration date.

Of course, he hadn’t really expected the opportunity to arise, and in the back of his mind, he knew there was a very good chance they had both gone on to get married and have kids. It had been nearly a decade, after all.

Still, when the opportunity to pass by Cicero, Indiana came up, he wasn’t going to pass on the possibility of seeing Lisa again. It didn’t hurt to find out, right?

Knowing the possibility that she’d long since moved on, and being prepared for it, were two entirely different things, it turned out.

And meeting her kid—Ben, who was frighteningly similar to Dean, and the right age, too—he wasn’t prepared for that at all. At first, he was a terrified. Terrified that he might have a kid out there that he never knew about…

And terrified that he would never get to know him.

And terrified that the Winchester family curse would be passed on.

But Ben was a great kid, brave and selfless, and so much like Dean it scared him.

By the time he’s accepted that Ben was his kid… Lisa was telling him that he wasn’t. And yeah, if he was being completely honest with himself (which is a thing he was occasionally capable of), he was a little disappointed. They were very probably his last chance at having a family—even if he couldn’t be a family with them. And damn. That wasn’t even something he thought he wanted, until it was too late.

Coming back from Hell… it wasn’t as though the whole ordeal gave him a new perspective, though in some ways, it did. But he felt changed. He wasn’t sure if it was in good ways, or bad. Heck, maybe it was both. Maybe it was neither. All he knew was that he was different. Recklessly getting down with every hot waitress, stripper, and soccer mom in his path didn’t come as easily as it had before. It felt like he was going through the motions, playing the _character_ of Dean Winchester, but not really feeling it, not like he used to. He still had a good time, still liked having sex, but it all felt different now.

Even with Anna there had been more emotions than he typically associated with a quick fuck. Still, emotions didn’t help in the long run. The sex was good, but it was still just sex, and that was a sentiment that would never feel not foreign to him.

He had a worrying realization after Castiel had sent him back to 1973, but it didn’t actually hit him until a couple days later.

Mary had, ultimately, given up her life (and brought this curse upon the family) to save John. Years later, John had given his life and soul for Dean. And Dean had given his for Sam.

It was a vicious loop they were trapped in, and though Dean had somehow gotten out of Hell, he still wasn’t sure what the other end of that deal meant.

And how long before it came back around again, and one of them made another deal?

Angels were a mixed bag. They’d raised him out of Hell, sure, but there was a reverse side to that coin that he was still trying to figure out. They were manipulating him, tightlipped until it suited them to give him information—usually only once it was too late.

Angels were mostly dicks.

There was something different about Castiel though. He had confessed early on that he had doubts about his orders, and sometimes he looked at Dean and he could swear, it felt like the angel wanted to tell him everything, the whole damn truth. Then again. Maybe that was just further manipulation.

He didn’t notice it immediately. Rather, it was a rare moment of introspection, brought on by a particularly good slice of pizza, when he realized he had found some enjoyment in life again. Dean had started to feel like himself again. It wasn’t all at once, and there were still the ever-present memories of Hell in the back of his mind. But over time, Dean Winchester had started to feel real, not a cardboard cutout of himself. Sex felt good, pie and burgers and beer were more than just fuel, and sometimes he didn’t even wake in a cold sweat from the nightmares.

Castiel was like… Dean didn’t know which analogy most fit him, actually. Cas was a pain in the ass, but of all the angels, he was by far the most palatable, and the most intriguing. He knew so little about humans, less than other angels seemed to, and yet was more compassionate toward them. Dean could also see something in him, the desire to do what was right, damn the consequences.

“What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you, your guilt, your anger, confusion.”

He was right. Dean was filled to the brim with all the bad emotions humanity had to offer. But it didn’t negate the good.

Dean didn’t have much faith, and he certainly didn’t have any for God or Heaven or angels. His faith was in people, in _family_. Sam, even if he was all screwed up on demon blood, and Bobby, who’d been more of a parent to them than their own flesh and blood, and yes, he even had a little faith in Castiel. Because if Cas believed, _really believed_ , in all the shit Heaven was planning, then he wouldn’t be here right now.

Cas could hardly look him in the eye, his gaze continually falling to the floor or the wall behind Dean, and maybe, if there had been more time, Dean would’ve given him a moment to process, instead of just tearing into everything the angel had known and believed.

But there wasn’t time.

“There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it. Look at me!” He grabbed Cas by the shoulder and turned him—an act he knew was only possible because the angel allowed it. “Now you were going to help me once, weren’t you,” he said, his voice softening. He could see it breaking down behind Cas’ eyes. “You were going to warn me about all of this before they dragged you back to bible camp. Help me, now, please,” he begged.

“What would you have me do?”


	2. To Make It Through the Night

When Cas left, he’d been sure that was the end of it. He failed. He failed Sam, failed Bobby, failed the world.

But Cas did return, helped him escaped and get back to Sam and…

And they still failed.

Cas was dead and Lucifer was free and they failed.

And then he wasn’t dead (but Lucifer was still free), and Dean was relieved and confused and grateful and _confused_.

He wasn’t 100% sure when he started to feel something for the nerd angel. It wasn’t love, hell, sometimes it wasn’t even like. But there was an unexpected attraction that formed sometime in the past year, and seeing Cas alive and kicking brought it back in full swing.

Not that he was ever going to act on any of it, because, hello, _angel_.

Still, Dean was nothing if not a bisexual disaster of self-loathing and bad ideas. And taking Castiel, an angel of the lord with almost no social skills to speak of, into a whore house ranked monumentally high on his list of bad ideas. And that didn’t even qualify as his worst idea of the night.

Cas was full of nervous energy, and Dean found the whole doe-eyed, anxious expression to be not only endearing but cute. Why had he brought Cas here when what he might’ve wanted was to take care of the angel himself?

He squashed down that errant thought without taking a second to consider what it meant.

That would’ve been a bad idea.

“Cas, his name is Cas,” Dean offered up, when it was all too clear that Cas couldn’t do it himself. “What’s your name?”

“Chastity.”

Of fucking course it was. “Is that kismet or what, buddy?”

That was about three minutes before it all went tits up—and not in the fun way.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Cas said as they climbed into the car to get away from the ‘den of iniquity’ as he’d put it.

“No need to apologize,” Dean said, still chuckling. “I probably should’ve known things wouldn’t go according to plan.” He looked at Cas, who at least had the presence of mind to look almost offended.

“I just don’t think I’m made to fornicate with strangers,” he said. Dean buried his face in his hand, laughing. Anyone else in the world talked like that, it would’ve been weird and uncomfortable, but with Cas it was just. Stupidly charming.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Dean said. And then his next stupid idea hit. “Listen, if you still wanna _go out with a bang_ ,” he said, chuckling at his own little joke (though, if Cas’ completely blank expression was anything to go by, it had gone right over his head). “We could… you know…”

Cas studied him for a moment, then nodded. “I think that would be amenable.”

Dean let out a huff of air. “Cas, it’s not… Don’t let me pressure you into anything. We can just order a pizza and watch cartoons or something. Whatever.”

“I’m an angel of the lord. Mostly. You could not take advantage of me if you tried. I think I would like to ‘go out with a bang’ as you say. If your offer was sincere, that is.”

“Okay,” Dean said, nodded. Shit, this was such a bad idea.

It wasn’t as though he’d spent any kind of time thinking about doing this, not more than the 5-minute drive back to the abandoned house, and he certainly didn’t have a _plan_.

“Still wanna do this?” he asked, parking the car and shutting off the engine.

“Yes,” Cas replied with a surprising amount of certainty.

“Good. Get in the backseat,” he instructed. There was no inch of that house that even came close to clean enough to even consider it. “Leave your coat and shoes up here,” he added, unlacing his own boots. He knew there just wasn’t enough space in the backseat for two grown men and the inevitable tangle of limbs of trying to shed clothing.

Cas gave him a perplexed look, but did as he said, leaving his shoes and his trench coat in the seat, before moving to the back. Dean left behind his jacket and boots, and moved up the front bench, then joined Cas.

“Okay,” Dean said, his voice softer than he intended. He found himself unexpectedly nervous, but attributed it to the weirdness of his partner being a virgin, not to mention an angel. “I’m gonna take care of you, but you gotta promise to tell me if you don’t like something or you wanna stop.”

“I promise,” he said.

Dean nodded then leaned, starting off slow and easy, he pressed his lips to Cas’. It was a moment before the angel reacted, opening his mouth to allow Dean access. They moved against one another, lips chasing lips, until Dean moved on, peppering his face and neck with blunt kisses before nibbling on his ear. Cas let out a little contented sigh, encouraging Dean to refocus his attention there, where his ear met his neck.

His hands spurred into action, roaming over Cas’ torso. He caressed his hips and chest through the shirt, then pushed at the jacket resting on his shoulders.

“You wear too many layers,” Dean mumbled into Cas’ neck.

“Sorry,” Cas said, shrugging the jacket off.

Dean moved on to the buttons of Cas’ shirt, fumbling to undo them while he busied his mouth on Cas’ exposed throat.

Cas, learning and absorbing as they went, waited until he was free of his shirt and tie before reaching out to address the buttons of Dean’s flannel. Soon enough, his shirt joined Cas’ on the floorboard, and Cas’ hands set out to do their own exploring. His fingers ghost over Dean’s left shoulder, and though the brand he left there was almost completely faded, the sensation still sent warm chills through Dean’s body.

Bad choices had consequences, and it was both fortunate and unfortunate for Dean that Cas survived their encounter with the Archangel Raphael. Fortunate, because, well, Cas was still alive, but unfortunate because now Dean had to be able to look him in the eyes like he hadn’t had the angel’s dick in his mouth.

But Cas’ baseline was socially awkward, and as it turned out, casual sex between friends didn’t actually make him _weirder_. And as far as Dean was concerned, there wasn’t anything wrong with what they did—sex was a beautiful and natural thing, but not something sacred or deeply meaningful.

Dean wouldn’t say it out loud, but he was glad to have Sam back. Hunting on his own had been fine, and Cas riding shotgun for a couple of cases had been a welcome change of pace, but having Sammy back in the passenger seat felt _right._

And after seeing a future where Sam was possessed by Lucifer, Cas was baked, and Dean himself was cold, he needed to have something that felt right. For all his demands about ‘no chick flick moments’, he wasn’t that committed to it—not in the here and now anyway. He knew himself enough to know that it was a defense mechanism, a way to defuse the tension, not an actual way of life. He didn’t want to become that person—the person who hadn’t spoken to his brother in 5 years, who tortured for information, who knowingly led his friends to death. He wanted no part of it.

He looked to Sam, half-asleep against the window of the impala, and smiled. All was not right with the world, but at least this felt right.

Castiel was Dean’s friend, easily his best friend, though admittedly, it wasn’t a long list to begin with. They didn’t talk about that time they’d had sex in the back of his car, and it didn’t change their relationship in any kind of significant way. It didn’t make Dean uncomfortable, and it didn’t mean that he suddenly wanted in the angel’s pants all the time—he was still attracted to him, sure, but he was attracted to plenty of people, Cas wasn’t special in that regard.

Sometimes Cas would join them on a case, or, more often, show up at the last moment with some helpful tidbit of information. Mostly, he was off on his own, searching for God or answers or mythical weapons. When he did pop in, it was usually to drop more apocalyptic shit on their doorstep before vanishing once more.

Growing up a hunter, there were few constants in this life, and inconsistent was a familiar feeling. Still, he found himself wanting—usually in the quiet moments after sunrise, when nothing was happening and there was just a little too much time with his thoughts. Wanting for what, exactly, he wasn’t always sure. Normalcy? Consistency? To wake up next to someone he loved? He didn’t know.

When God had bailed on them, told them to fuck right off, Dean felt for Cas, he did. ‘Absent father’ was something he could relate to, and focusing on Cas’ pain was vastly easier than dealing with his own shit. Cas was carving out space in what Dean considered family, which if someone had told him that a year ago, he’d probably have clocked them in the jaw. But nonetheless, he did care about Cas, hated seeing him like this, even if he wasn’t so good at putting all that into words.

In the rare moments that he would let himself imagine a normal, happy, apple pie life, it was with Lisa. Lisa and Ben.

Heck, he hardly knew them; it was just a pipedream. They were the closest thing to normal he’d ever known, and sometimes he thought… maybe, in another life, in a _normal_ life, he could have a family like that.

“You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and then leave.”

He probably shouldn’t have come here at all.

It was a fantasy, and not one he was sure he was altogether committed to. Normal didn’t suit him. He’d seen glimpses of a normal life, and it didn’t fit. Deep down, he really did want a family, but family didn’t exactly fit with his lifestyle, and for that matter, he didn’t fit the family lifestyle. Sometimes he wished he could.

Everything was a blur, it all happened so fast that there was barely time to process anything that was happening. He was going to let Michael in – Adam was resurrected – losing Cas – _not_ saying yes to Michael – Gabriel helping them and then dying – a potentially disastrous alliance with Crowley – Cas returning – dealing with Pestilence and then Death—

Sammy saying yes to the devil.

There was just too much happening for him to have time to really think about any of it. Even the quiet moments on the road didn’t feel quiet or their usual serene. It all felt like chaos. Ceaseless, painful, chaos.

Maybe it was better that he didn’t get much time to think about any of it.

Bobby was at a loss, had no plan, no ideas. Cas was just lost; he was practically human, with no idea how to actually _be_ human. They had all but given up. They failed. Again.

But Dean… somehow, Dean still had faith.

“I’m gonna go talk to Sam,” he told them.

Maybe it was a stupid idea, but deep down, he knew he had to. _Had to_.

“The only thing you’re going to see out there is Michael killing your bother.” His brothers killing each other.

“Well then, I ain’t gonna let him die alone.”

They had nothing else left. There was no last-ditch effort, no final chance to save the world. They were plummeting toward that shithole future Zachariah had shown him.

He should’ve never let Sammy do it.

He probably should’ve been terrified, riding up to the final showdown with nothing but himself and Def Leopard, but maybe he just wasn’t that smart. If this was really and truly it, _the end_ , then what did he have to lose by trying?

Every bone in his face was probably broken, but none of it hurt.

Sam was gone. Bobby was dead. Cas was dead. Sammy was gone.

Every fiber of his being wanted to die, or find a way to bring Sammy back. But he wasn’t going to do either. He made a promise.


	3. Room to Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter. It was hard to write, and I’m overall just not happy with it (much like I felt about the seasons it represents). That said, it does feel necessary, and skipping over it would’ve felt wrong, so here it is. I’m also posting the next chapter right away so you don’t completely lose faith in my writing ability.

“Talk to me,” Lisa said, placing her hands gently on his shoulders. “Tell me what happened.”

Dean closed his eyes and let out a breath. “You want the abridged story or the real one?”

“Whichever one you need.”

He told her everything. Most of everything, anyway. Everything from Hell to setting Lucifer free, to his plan to let Michael in, to Sam dragging them into the cage. He even told her how he might’ve been a little bit in love with an angel, but realized it only after he’d returned to Heaven. Mostly, he told her how lost he felt without Sam.

Their relationship was a weird one. On the outside, they were a perfectly ordinary, almost nuclear family: a yoga instructor, a mechanic, and their son, who may or may not have been biologically his.

On the inside, things were more complicated. He cared for Lisa and Ben, loved them. But ‘happy’ was still something he was working on. ‘Happy’ was still something he still wasn’t sure he could achieve. Sam was gone, trapped in Hell with Michael and Lucifer, and there was _nothing_ Dean could do about it.

Lisa and Dean weren’t a couple, not really, not as most traditionally defined a couple. They were two people who took care of one another, and supported each other emotionally… okay, maybe they were sort of a couple. But they weren’t _romantically_ involved, nor were they really even sexually involved.

Dean had _tried_. Really, he had. He tried to go all in on the apple pie life he had promised to Sammy. But he just didn’t feel it. His heart wasn’t there.

So he went through the motions. He didn’t pretend for Lisa—he was probably more open and honest with her than he had ever been with anyone in his life. And weirdest of all, she was okay with it, happy even. Their arrangement works, even if it was unusual.

Most days, he could pass for content, but even that felt like an act. It was an achievement that he no longer wanted to die, but happy was still a long way off.

They didn’t talk much about his life before. Most of it was still too painful to even think about. On rare occasions, he would tell Lisa or Ben some story from years ago, from before his life was torn apart, but the momentary happiness usually faded quickly, when reality caught up with him.

“Do you ever think about hunting again?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know,” Dean answered. It was complicated. Knowing what was out there, all the monsters and bad things happening to good people, it was hard to ignore. Playing domestic felt like avoiding reality. But still, going out on hunts without Sam… it didn’t feel right. And more importantly, it felt like betraying Sam.

But leaving Sam to rot in the cage felt like betrayal too.

So, no. He didn’t know. He didn’t know if he wanted to hunt again or just continue burying his head in the sand.

“You got out, Dean,” Sam said.

“I didn’t want out!” Dean shouted back at him. “I wanted _my brother_.”

Dean would’ve given anything, _anything_ during that year, if it meant having his brother back. He had sworn he wouldn’t make any deals, but damn him if he didn’t consider it more than a handful of times.

But he’d stopped himself every time. Because he knew how Sammy would’ve reacted, if Dean sold himself over again.

Hell was easily the worst experience of his life, but he would do it again in a heartbeat for Sam.

And to learn that he had been back, almost the whole damn time, and hadn’t said _a thing_?

It sucked.

The problem was… this guy wasn’t his brother. He walked like Sam and mostly talked like Sam, but there was something very, very wrong.

Sam was without a soul, and Castiel was even more distant than usual, and for the first time, Dean found himself wanting to turn back, to go back to Ben and Lisa and just pretend to be normal again.

But he didn’t.

Because Sam was without a soul, and there was _something_ going on with Samuel, and in general there were just too many things that Dean couldn’t let go of.

So he left Lisa and Ben behind and went all in on hunting again.

His biggest regret was the target he left painted on their backs.

Deep down, he knew that Cas was dead this time, he couldn’t have survived. And he had betrayed him—betrayed _them_ , so maybe he deserved that.

No, he really didn’t.

Because for all his misguided efforts, all the lies, all the bad he had done without them… Dean knew he had good intentions.

Maybe he should’ve still felt angry, but he just didn’t. Mostly, he felt regret.

He folded up Cas’ old coat and puts it in the trunk of the car. Later, when they’re forced into hiding, forced to put Baby on blocks and take a new shitty car every other week, he would still keep the coat with them, moving it from trunk to trunk with their lockbox of hunting gear. Was it out of hope that Cas would someday return? Or merely the need to keep a memento of a lost loved one? Dean wasn’t sure.

And Sammy, bless him, wouldn’t say a word about it.

Losing Bobby… it was damn near the final straw.

For maybe the first time in his life, he wanted out. He was done with this shit, done with the constant loss, done feeling _like this_.

But bailing on the world wasn’t an option, not for him.

So, he followed Frank’s advice. ‘Fake it ‘til you make it.’ He rebuilt all his walls and he pretended everything was fine. It was easier this time, playing the character of Dean Winchester, and it was a hell of a lot easier than playing soccer-dad Dean Winchester. Eat garbage food, drink until he was numb, fuck some nameless chicks. Hell, he didn’t even care if Sam caught him fucking nameless dudes too.

He played at being okay, pretended their job hadn’t stripped him down to the wire. Pretended everything was fine.

And eventually, he kinda started to believe it.

Sam seemed to be doing surprisingly well, all things considered. He was, perhaps, only thriving on increasingly ridiculous dick jokes with regards to Richard Roman and Dean’s obsession with finding him and killing him.

“You gonna look up more anime, or are you strictly into Dick now?”

Dean rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, Sam, I’m bi and occasionally have sex with guys; stop making tasteless dick jokes.’ But he didn’t say that. He never said it. He ignored it and focused on the job.

When Castiel returned from the dead, again, Dean was equal parts angry and relieved. While he’d been dead, he couldn’t be mad at him for all he’d done, he had no room left for anger. But now. Now he was perfectly capable of balancing the happiness he felt to have his best friend back, alive and well, with the frustration of everything he had done leading up to his death.

One thing was certain. He wasn’t going to fall for the idea that Cas was dead again. Not without a body. Not without his wings burned into the ground. If the universe wanted him to believe it, it owed him that, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re curious to know, I have a total of 12 chapters written thus far… and about 7 more that are partially written. Overall, I’m guessing the finished work will be around 20+ chapters.


	4. Wont You Carry Me Away

“Castiel,” he said, his eyes closing for the briefest moment. He wasn’t one for prayer, but he didn’t know any other way to contact him. He didn’t even know if the prayer would reach him in this literally god-forsaken place. “If you can hear me, I’m still here.” He wasn’t really sure what he should say, but he figured that was enough to tell Cas he was alive and to make his way back to him. He looked around himself, looking for some identifying feature. “I don’t know how to tell you where to find me, not without drawing others in too.”

“Cas,” he said into the empty night. “If you can hear me, I’m still here. If you see anything that resembles food, I could really go for a burger.”

“Cas, I’m starting to think I don’t actually need food, is that weird?” He barely needed sleep, either, and so far, had been managing with even less than his usual 4 hours. “There’s a clearing about a quarter-mile from where I am,” he told Cas. “I’m gonna catch a few z’s out here, but I’ll circle back that way in a few hours. Please just. Please be there.”

The monsters kept coming. Some were more active at night, others didn’t care. They kept coming. They didn’t need the sleep any more than he did. When he did need it, he’d climb one of the trees—it wasn’t safe, per se, but it was safer than the ground.

“Cas,” he said, a couple weeks in. “Cas, I hope you’re still out there, buddy.”

He prayed to him every day. At first, he was genuinely trying to reunite them, and he would give whatever description he could that might help lead Cas to him. Later though, he started to lose hope. If Cas was out there, surely he would’ve found him by now. But he kept it up, just in case.

“Cas.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t even know if you’re alive, man. Please, give me something.”

He kept it up though. It was his routine. And even if Cas wasn’t out there, or couldn’t hear him, or whatever… he needed it.

“Cas, I killed a wendigo today,” he said. “I think it might’ve been the same one Sammy and I hunted a few years back. That’s just great, isn’t it? Every monster I’ve ever ganked is crawling around in here somewhere, just waiting for revenge.”

Well, let them come. He’d kill every last one of them again.

“Cas. I miss you.”

“Cas, I know you’re out there. I don’t know if you can hear me—I think, if you could, you’d have found your way to me by now. But I know you’re out there.” The last vampire he killed had seen him. It hadn’t been particularly forthcoming with the information, but he had seen him, that much Dean believed. “I’m gonna find you.”

Purgatory.

It wasn’t like Hell. Hell was imbalanced; there were torturers and torturees. Dean had played both roles, and both weighed heavily on his soul. Hell was nothing but endless torment, no matter which side you were on.

But Purgatory was raw and pure, for Dean anyway. Hunting on earth had been an outlet, a place to dump all his anger and fear and emotion, especially after Hell. Purgatory was all that and more. He had no moral quandaries about beheading every monster who crossed his path, cleansing himself in their blood. It was soothing, in a way, like chicken soup for the soul.

He didn’t stop praying when he joined up with Benny, though he was a little quieter about it. He didn’t pray every stray thought that crossed his mind. After a while, those stray thought became conversations with the vampire, things to pass the time between monsters.

He didn’t trust Benny, at first. At first, he could hardly stand to be around him. But after a while, maybe some weird form of Stockholm syndrome started to set in, and he began to appreciate him as more than just a set of fangs.

He was a good fighter, and more importantly, they fought well together. Hell, it was almost as good as having Sam along side him. Still, every time Benny called him ‘brother,’ it made him want to cut his teeth out. They weren’t brothers, not even close.

In general, he tried not to think about his brother. Best case scenario, Sam was back home, searching for him; but it had been months, and in all likelihood, Sam thought he was dead.

The worst case though, was that Sam had been in the blast radius, and had been whisked away to Purgatory with them, but had landed somewhere else. He tried not to think about it.

By the time they finally, _finally_ , found Cas, Dean could’ve kissed him. Maybe if Benny wasn’t there, maybe if he knew how Cas would react. He settled for a hug.

No less than three minutes later, he wanted to deck him in the nose, though.

He was going to drag Cas out of Purgatory, kicking and screaming if he had to, or die trying.

Benny had saved his hide more times than he’d bothered to count; it did little to mitigate the mistrust he had—Benny needed him to get out, but that didn’t mean he could be _trusted_. Dean had every intention of beheading him the moment he they got topside, assuming they ever actually made it.

But the first time Benny saved Cas?

That was the first night he called the vampire ‘brother’.

Home didn’t feel quite like home anymore. The sun was too bright, the cars were too loud, and the city had a smell that didn’t sit right in his nose anymore. It was all familiar, but just didn’t fit.

Maybe home wasn’t the problem, maybe it was Dean.

Purgatory had changed him.

Losing Cas had changed him.

He’d been through this before, lost Cas before, only for him to turn up again. He’s sworn to himself he wouldn’t fall for it again.

This was different though.

There was a chance Cas was still alive in purgatory—a fairly good chance, they had survived months on their own. Even if he’d left Cas surrounded by Leviathan, there was still a chance he was alive.

But Dean saw no way out for him.

Even if he was alive, he wasn’t coming back.

And Dean had no one to blame but himself.

He didn’t want to be angry with Sam. Hell, he wanted to be _happy_ for Sam. He’d dragged his little brother out of retirement all those years ago, and there were times he wished so badly that Sam could go back and be a lawyer and have a family.

But he couldn’t. He was still reeling from all that had happened, and there just weren’t enough monsters to keep him sated. So that anger redirected to Sam, who’d left them in Purgatory without even looking, who’d abandoned Kevin and ditched all his phones.

He started praying again, the first night back, and never really stopped.

He didn’t pray to god, of course, because even if there was verifiable proof of his existence, it didn’t mean Dean believed in him. Besides, god didn’t give a shit about him.

But he’d prayed to Cas for months in Purgatory, only stopping for the few months they had been together, and it felt only natural to keep doing so. He had no way of knowing if Cas had survived after Dean failed to get him out, and a part of him was certain that he hadn’t. It didn’t matter if Cas could hear his prayers or not.

Huh. Maybe that was the point; maybe the faithful didn’t pray to be heard, but rather to say whatever they needed to say.

Purgatory hadn’t seemed to care if he ate or not, but back on earth, he needed to. That felt wrong too. Nothing tasted quite right, and it didn’t sit right in his stomach. It was weeks before he found himself able to _really_ eat something and enjoy it too. It took longer to get used to sleeping.

Still, he didn’t think the lack of sleep was causing hallucinations. Not after all this time.

But still, there was Cas, in line at the gas station, walking alongside the road, standing outside his window.

He trusted his might enough to know that it wasn’t a hallucination, but… but it couldn’t possibly be Cas either.

Could it?

“I gotta be honest, I’m thinking… how _the hell_ did you make it out?” Dean asked. He wanted, more than anything, to believe that it was really Cas here in front of him. But he had been there. He had seen what Purgatory did, they’d been lucky to make it as far as they did; Dean had been lucky to make it out at all. But he’d made it out with regret so deep he couldn’t breathe sometimes. He’d left Cas behind. “So how exactly are you sitting here with us right now?”

Every fiber of his being wanted it to be real, wanted Cas to be real. But his gut was pulling him in the opposite direction, telling him it couldn’t possibly be real. It couldn’t be that easy. Getting out of shit like this came with strings attached… Dean had been lucky that his string was Benny, a vampire who had some sense of self control.

But whatever had dragged Cas out, if it was indeed Cas, surely it was going to come knocking eventually, and they wouldn’t like what it asked for.

He stopped praying. It felt weird now, knowing that he was back and would probably hear every word—he actually wasn’t sure, could Cas hear him with angel-radio turned off? Probably, prayer was supposed to be like a direct message, wasn’t it?

Regardless. Cas was back, and Dean stopped praying. He was, of course, glad that he was back, ecstatic even. But it still didn’t feel right. Cas was off, and Dean couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but it felt not unlike the time he’d been working with Crowley.

He wasn’t going to let himself be fooled again.

When he told Sam to go back to Amelia, it was almost as much a surprise to Dean as it was to Sam. He didn’t want his brother to leave, of course, but he didn’t want him unhappy either. And if Amelia was his shot at happiness, then he deserved it more than anyone else Dean knew. At least one of them deserved that.

In truth, Dean didn’t see that life for himself. Given the chance, he wouldn’t go back to Lisa and Ben. These days, he didn’t have halfhearted fantasies about a normal life. Most of his dreams involved the car, the open road, and rundown diners. He was okay with that. And he could lie to himself and say he was okay if Sam wasn’t part of it.

He was surprised when Sammy decided to stay. Grateful, but surprised.

They weren’t sure what to expect with the Men of Letters bunker. When they put the key in the door, Dean was almost certain there would be an army of nerds waiting for them on the other side—despite the fact that all evidence pointed to the secret society having been long defunct.

He wasn’t expecting a near pristine storehouse of occult and supernatural lore, or the nerve center of a complex former operation.

He certainly wasn’t expecting to find a home.

“So, what, Aaron’s a JI, and you’re a Man of Letters now?” He didn’t mean it to sound like he was leading up to a joke. Sam was silent, no doubt because he thought he knew what Dean would say—call him a nerd, or whatever. “Good.” He gave Sam a glass of whiskey before sitting down across from him.

Dean would probably mock him mercilessly for it later, but for now, he would embrace it. Maybe this is what they were meant to be. The culmination of a long line of hunters and chroniclers, the Campbells and the Winchesters, the brains and the brawn. And though they both found balance, Sam had always been drawn toward knowledge, and Dean toward violence. Maybe this was why.

He’d never had this before. He never even realized he _wanted_ this before. His own room, his to do whatever he wanted with. A nice bathroom, with no mysterious stains, where he could take an honest-to-god bath and just relax. A fully functional kitchen.

It wasn’t like he expected it to last forever. Good things rarely did for them. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t take advantage of this while it did last. So, he was going to get a good night’s sleep, he was going to make good food, and dammit, he was going to take a bath.

Family was important to Dean, more important than sex, or hunting, or, yes, even more important than Baby (though, under most circumstances, he would claim that the car _was_ family, and he wasn’t wrong to do so). There had been a time when family just meant Dad and Sam, and then later Bobby.

And now, even after everything—no, _especially_ after everything they’d been through, family included an angel by the name of Castiel.

So when Dean said “there’s something wrong with Cas,” he didn’t mean he didn’t trust him. It meant he didn’t trust the thing that brought him out of purgatory.

Because something was off, but Dean didn’t get the impression that Cas was lying to them, or hiding something—though, admittedly, Dean did know that his gut instinct couldn’t always be trusted where Cas was concerned—but there was something _wrong_.

Still. When it came down to it, he was family, and quite possibly the only other person on the planet he knew cared about Sammy in any way that counted.

“Look man, you know I’m not one for praying. In my book it’s the same thing as begging,” he said, calling out to Castiel. That was technically not true; he did pray, had prayed a lot to Cas. But this was different. All those times before, it wasn’t about faith or begging for help, it was honestly more akin to leaving voicemails on Cas’ phone, sometimes just to say hi. But this.

He needed help.

Cas looked like a struggle going on inside of him, had looked that way since he showed up at the house after the demons, but now, as his fist beats down on Dean’s face again and again, there was a war going on inside him and Dean knew, he _knew_ , that this was Cas. This was something controlling him, no doubt the same thing that had been controlling him since he got back.

“You’re gonna have to kill me first,” he said. The taste of blood was fresh in his mouth. “Come on, you coward. Do it.”

He didn’t want to die, and certainly not like this. But this wasn’t about that; it was about breaking through whatever this thing was. He wasn’t sure which would’ve come as more surprise: the revelation that he didn’t want to die, or the complete faith he had that Cas wouldn’t kill him.

“Cas, this isn’t you.” But now, the expression on Cas’ face wasn’t one of inner turmoil, there was no internal struggle. There was not Cas. “I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. Cas. It’s me. We’re family, we need you. I need you.”

And there was a shift, an instant where Cas almost broke through. It was enough to drop the blade from his fingers. Dean breathed a sigh of relief, or would have, if damn near every bone in his face hadn’t been broken.

The moment his hands touched the Angel Tablet, they were engulfed in blinding white light, and in that moment, Dean was sure that it was the end.

But it wasn’t. They didn’t die. His wounds were healed, and Cas’ features were softened and more Cas-like.

“I’m so sorry, Dean.”

Calling on Benny’s help was his only choice, and not one he took lightly. Benny, he realized too late, was family too. He didn’t care what Sam thought, this vampire was his friend, had been there through the worst of it, and he’d never given Dean a reason to lose trust in him. But asking him for this… Dean hated it. He would’ve done anything to find another way.

Benny told him about not fitting in after Purgatory, and Dean understood, probably better than anyone in the world. And he regretted. Because he’d had Sam to help him through, to tether him to the world until it felt real again. But Benny didn’t have that, didn’t have anyone but Dean, and Dean had bailed on him when he needed him most.

He would be better, in the future. When Benny and Sam got back, he would make it right, be the friend Benny needed.

But he knew, deep down, even as Benny was agreeing to ride Sam out, Dean knew this was goodbye for them. He was going to kill his friend, and he was never going to see him again.

Still, he hoped. He loaded his body into the trunk of the car and he hoped that Benny would find his way out with Sam.

The message from Kevin hit him like a brick to the stomach.

He should’ve been there, should’ve done more, should’ve protected him. Instead he’d dumped him on Garth, dropping by only once in a while.

The thing that hit the hardest was realizing how _young_ he looked. Kevin was just a kid. A kid who’d been plucked out of high school and thrown into their shitty lives. Dean had pushed him, and even when Sammy had told him to lay off, Dean didn’t pull back. He’d forgotten, somewhere along the way, that Kevin didn’t choose this life like they did; he was supposed to be in college, chasing girls and getting drunk at frat parties.

Instead he was dead. And Dean had no one to blame but himself.

But then Kevin wasn’t dead, and Cas had turned up in the middle of the road they were on. Somehow, despite all the odds, there were now two people in the back of the Impala, bloody and broken and tired, who had survived all the shit that came with befriending the Winchesters. To say that Dean was grateful would be an understatement. For the moment, he was happy with that. They could deal with the other shit later.

Cas was barely conscious by the time they got back to the bunker, which had them worried. The last time he’d been this weak, he was falling, almost human. And Dean, fuck, Dean didn’t know how he was supposed to care for both Sam and Cas, not when there was no cure-all that would help either. Broken bones, dislocated shoulders, stab wounds, heck, even the _flu_ he could handle. But dental floss or chicken soup couldn’t fix what was wrong here, which left Dean completely at a loss for what to do.

Sammy could walk on his own, at least, which was more than could be said for Cas. “Come on, buddy,” Dean said, pulling Cas’ arm over his shoulder and helping him out of the car.

“Where are we?” Cas asked blearily.

“Home,” Dean answered. He all but carried him into the bunker, down the long halls, and into a room Dean had mentally set aside for him months ago. It wasn’t decorated or anything, didn’t have any personal touches yet, but it was clean, and it was near the brother respective rooms. “It’s a Men of Letters bunker,” Dean explained along the way, though Cas seemed only semi-coherent. “Our grandfather—dad’s dad—was a member, before they all got wiped out… it’s kind of complicated. But it’s ours now.” He helped Cas out of his trenchcoat and his shoes and into the bed. “Bathroom is down the hall, if you need it, and Sammy and I will be around…” He doubted either of them would be getting much sleep.

“I just need some rest,” Cas said, closing his eyes as his head hit the pillow. “I’ll be back to normal in a few hours.”

“Good,” Dean said, moving toward the door.

“Thank you, Dean.”

By the time morning rolled around, any positive emotion Dean was feeling had shifted. Cas was better—still not quite 100%, but better enough that his clothes were miraculously clean and Dean, Dean could hardly look at him.

“Dean, I’m sorry,” Cas said, and damn if it didn’t sound like he meant it.

“For what?”

“For everything.”

For ignoring them? For running off with the Angel tablet, for _losing it_. For not trusting him. “You didn’t trust _me_?” And that was the root of it, wasn’t it? If Dean was the introspective sort, he might’ve realized sooner, that this was what is all boiled down to. That he was _angry_ because it was easier than anything else he might’ve felt.

So, Dean was pissed. If anyone else tried that shit… Why should he get a free pass?

“Because it’s _Cas_ ,” Sam said, and screw him. Screw him for acting like that was supposed to mean something. For insinuating that whatever feelings he had for Cas meant that he should forgive him, just like that.

Screw that. They’d been down this road too many times.

“Sam is more damaged than I am,” Cas said, arguing that if anyone should be remaining in the bunker, it was Sam. Hell, it was probably true.

“Yeah, well, even banged up, Sammy comes through.” Maybe he said it just to hurt Cas, to make him feel some fraction of what Dean had felt when Cas had left him in the dust.

Still, Cas was an angel, he couldn’t _feel_ much of anything, so it wasn’t like it mattered anyway.

“He’s family,” Sam said a while later, when they were on the road to St. Louis. Dean wanted to tell him to shove a sock in it. “All I’m saying is, it’s no different than anything you or I have done a dozen times. We’ve both kept secrets, trying to protect the other.”

“That’s supposed to make it better?” Dean had been pissed about each and every secret Sammy had kept from him.

“No,” Sam said. “But we always forgave each other.”

Dean set his jaw and turned up the radio. Sam sighed, but accepted it as the end of the conversation.

Dean would forgive him in time. That much, he knew. He’d forgiven Cas for worse, and like Sam said, he was family.

But he needed to be mad a little longer.

And then shit hit the fan, like it always did. Abaddon got loose, Cas was in the wind, and Crowley was off killing everyone they’d ever saved. It was starting to seem like they could set their calendars for ‘apocalypse season’.

When Cas came to him again, outside the church, he was too tired, too busy to be anything more than mildly irritated. Because _of course_ he would pop up out of nowhere, drop a bombshell on him, and expect him to drop everything he was doing to help. He wanted to tell him to shove it.

But Sam was right. This was important, too. And it wasn’t like Dean hadn’t expected just as much from Cas, when it came down to the wire.

The absolute last thing he wanted was to ask Kevin for more. His life had been destroyed and translating the demon tablet was supposed to be the end of it, he was supposed to be home free.

Dean should’ve known it would never be that easy.

Cas left the kid with what sounded more than a little like a threat, before whisking Dean off to their next destination, wherever the hell that was.

“You didn’t have to be so hard the kid,” Dean said as they walked into a bar.

“Why?” Dean almost rolled his eyes at Cas’ unusually robotic behavior.

“Well, for one, _he’s a kid_.” Dean knew he was saying it as much to himself as he was to Cas.

Cas seemed to deflate a little, his expression fading into something a little more familiar. “I was too harsh. I am… still not very good with the intricacies of human communication.”

“Sometimes, you’re downright shitty,” Dean said, offering him a smile. “It’s okay though, he’ll get over it.” What he did voice though, was his own forgiveness; he hoped Cas understood that Dean didn’t hate him, wasn’t made at him, but that it just took time to get there. “So, what are we doing here?”

“Talk to me,” Dean said, sipping his beer. “You sure about this? I mean, it’s one thing, me and Sammy slamming the gates to the pit, but you’re boarding up Heaven and locking the door behind you.”

“Yeah, I know,” Cas said. He took a sip of his own beer, and he looked… he looked so goddamn human in that moment.

“You did a lot of damage up there. You think they’re just gonna let that slide?”

“Do I think they’ll kill me?” Cas filled in. “Yeah, they might.”

That one thought alone scared Dean more than any monster or demon they had ever faced. It scared him more than it had any right to.

“Could you just, I don’t know—” Dean stopped himself, knowing it was a stupid line of thinking to begin with.

“What, stay here, on earth?” Cas shook his head. “I don’t belong here, Dean.”

Dean scoffed. Dean scoffed. “You belong up there? Bullshit. You’re nothing like most of those ass-clowns.”

“What would you have me do? Stay here? I think you’ve made your feelings on the matter pretty clear.”

“You’re family, Cas,” he said. “And yeah, sometimes family makes you feel like shit, sometimes you hate them, sometimes they hate you. But at the end of the day, they’re still family. You’re about the only one Sammy and I have left.”

Cas sighed. “I wish I could stay. I wish it were that easy. But I don’t think I can hide from them forever. I have to face… judgement.”

“So, this is it?” Dean wanted… something. He wanted to kiss him, to just be with him in that moment. But he squashed that feeling down. “ET goes home.” Looking at Cas was a mistake, because of course that went right over his head, and his brow was furrowed in confusion, and he was just so endearingly _human_. Fuck it. He leaned toward the angel, brushing his thumb across Cas’ cheek as he pulled their faces closer and—

The bar door opened.

Showtime.

Naomi, Metatron, the Angel Trials, the Demon Trials… it was all a mess. And Kevin couldn’t translate fast enough to confirm or deny any of Naomi’s claims. They were running out of time, eight hours were nearly up.

“Dean—”

“Take me to him, _now_.” If she was lying, they could still move forward. If she wasn’t, this was their _only_ chance to save Sam.

In an instant, they were back on the church steps.

“Dean, I’m not wrong. I’m going to fix my home.”

And then he was gone again, and Dean was filled with a terrible sense of dread.

He was going to lose them both.

“You wanna know what my greatest sin was? How many times I let you down.”

Dean’s heart sunk.

No. His heart _broke_.

“I can’t do that again. What happens when you decide I can’t be trusted again? Who are you going to turn to next time? Another angel? Another _vampire_?”

Dean knew they’d been through the wringer, had gone through shit no one should ever have to, and they hadn’t always seen eye to eye.

But they were _brothers_ dammit.

“Don’t you dare, think that there is anything, past or presents, that I would put in front of you.” Dean would kill for him, would die for him, and he had done both. “I need you to see that. I’m begging you.”

Sam looked like his insides were tearing him apart. “How do I stop?” he asked, his body shaking in defeat.

“Just let it go,” Dean said. “Just let it go.” He wrapped up Sam’s bleeding hand, pulled him into a tight hug, and promised they’d figure it out. They would figure it out.

“Cas?” he called out. “Castiel!? Where the hell are you?” he asked, turning back to his writhing brother. He hoped it was enough of a prayer, that the desperation in him was enough to bring Cas back.

But before there was any kind of answer, the sky lit up with a thousand falling stars and Dean knew. It wasn’t stars; it was angels. They were too late.


	5. The War Is All Inside Your Head

He was more than ready to drive off and leave this place behind, get Sammy the help he needed; but he could hardly leave the broken and bloody King of Hell lying in there for anyone to stumble upon.

“Cas, if you can hear me,” Dean said, his hand resting on the church door, eyes closed. “Just… please tell me you can hear me.” He waited a moment, for what he wasn’t sure, before pushing the door open. “Come on, asshole,” he said, grabbing Crowley by the chains and dragging him out the door.

By the time he was finished securing the demon in the trunk, Sam was barely conscious, lying in the front seat of the car. “Watch your head,” Dean said softly, easing Sam’s head out of the way so he could get in. Sam shifted around, his face contorted in discomfort, until he settled with his head resting on Dean’s leg.

For a moment, Dean was 13 again, and Sam was 8. He had been sick with a fever, his head resting in his brother’s lap as Dean tried futilely to get him to eat something, _anything_.

And then the moment was gone, it was 20-odd years later, but they’re in the same place, with Dean taking care of his little brother. Somewhere along the way, Dean had failed him, had left him thinking that all those years caring for him were only because it was his duty, not because he wanted to do it.

“It’s gonna be okay, Sammy,” he said, his hand falling to rest on Sam’s shoulder as he drove them away.

“Cas, are you there?” He was tired. He was tired, and lost, and Sammy was dying, and he needed _help_. “I know you think that I’m pissed at you, but I don’t care that the angels fell. So, whatever you did, or didn’t do, it doesn’t matter, okay? We’ll work it out. Please, man, I need you here.”

All around him were people, lost in silent prayer, calling out for help that would probably never come, and here he was, with a direct line to an honest-to-God angel, and help wasn’t coming for him either.

Screw it.

“Listen up, this one goes out to any angel with their ears on. This is Dean Winchester, and I need your help.”

He didn’t take the decision lightly. Tricking Sam into letting an angel in should’ve been damn near the top of the list of things too never consider… but he wasn’t exactly swimming in options here. Sam was dying, and like hell was Dean going to stand down and let Death take him. Fuck that.

He knew Sammy might never forgive him for this one.

But at least he would be alive.

_Ezekiel_ followed him out to the car, warning him that it might be several hours, maybe longer, before Sam would be okay to wake up, and it was _Ezekiel_ who fell asleep in the seat next to him.

But it was Sam who slept there.

Dean drove.

Dean drove with no destination, no direction in mind. He drove for hours. Every few minutes, he would look over at Sammy, asleep against the window, and his worry would grow.

Sammy would be okay.

He had to be.

Dean tried to focus on the road, to lose himself in the blacktop.

And when Sam finally woke, they would go home.

He felt for Kevin, for all the shit he’d gone through. If he saw a way out for him, Dean would’ve jumped for it, would’ve done anything to kick the kid back into some semblance of a normal life.

But the fact of the matter was, he was a prophet, and he was known. Demons and angels alike would be after him if they could get to him. With all the warding and security the bunker had to offer—this was the safest place.

“And we need you, man,” Dean said.

“Because I’m useful,” Kevin said, sounding angry and defeated in equal parts.

“Because you’re family,” Dean corrected. And really, he needed to get better about showing people that, about making the people he cared about _know_ that he cared about them. “After all the crap we’ve been through, all the good that you’ve done… Man, if you don’t think that we would die for you, I don’t know what to tell you. Because you, me, Sam, and Cas? We’re all we’ve got.” But maybe that didn’t mean the same thing to Kevin that it did to Dean; after all, his mother was probably dead, and it wasn’t like the Winchesters were the loving, caring sort. If Kevin wanted to go… “I won’t stop you.”

Kevin nodded slowly, letting his backpack fall from his shoulder.

“Come ‘ere,” Dean said, pulling him into a hug. With one hand holding Kevin tightly, the other took the backpack, moving it to the nearby table. Kevin wrapped both his arms around Dean’s middle, sobbing into his chest. And Dean just held him, letting him cry it out, until he was calm enough to walk down the hall and get to bed. “You need anything?” Dean asked from the doorway, before hitting the light on his way out.

“I’m good,” Kevin said.

“You like pancakes?”

There was a pause. “Yes?”

“I’ll make pancakes for breakfast.”

He was worried about Cas even before Ezekiel revealed the Angel chatter he’d been hearing. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was newly human, of course he had to have Angels gathering and organizing and out for his head. As an angel himself, Cas was a badass who could easily hold his own, but as a human, with no grace to fall back on…

Dean worried.

Rightfully so, as it turned out, because if Ezekiel hadn’t been there, Cas would be dead.

“Good to have you back, buddy,” he said, pulling his friend into a one-armed hug. “Let’s go home.”

Sam was working on his computer, looking for cases, or reading up on Men of Letters reports, or whatever it was he did over there.

Cas was asleep in the backseat.

And Dean drove.

There was a certain rightness to it. The bunker may have been their home now, but this place—driving through the night, just the three of them—would always feel like home too.

There was a kind of wrongness to it too, though. Castiel was asleep, and when Dean blinked, he could remember this moment, but years before; like déjà vu, but more real. ‘ _Angels don’t sleep,_ ’ Sam had told him then.

But Cas wasn’t an angel now. He was human, with all the struggles and pitfalls that came with it. He was still tuned into the angel’s frequency, and Dean thought, in many ways, that might’ve only been worse. To hear the constant reminder of what he no longer had? It must’ve been torture.

And there was a wrongness to this, another memory brought to the surface, though Dean tried his hardest to keep it away.

The future, a future that never came to pass. Where Castiel was human, and Sam was possessed by an angel.

There were differences, too numerous to bother counting, between that vision and now, but the similarities, though few, were nearly impossible to ignore.

Castiel was human. And Sam was possessed by an angel.

2014 was just around the corner.

Dean shoved down those traitorous thoughts. This was different. They had already changed the course of things; 2014 would not be the thing he had seen.

He breathed in deep, holding on to the feeling of home as he drove.

Everything was going to be okay.

It broke his heart to tell Cas he had to leave the bunker, when what he wanted to do more than anything was to wrap his arms around the fallen angel, to take care of him, to teach him how to be human. But Sammy came first, and Ezekiel couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ save him while Castiel was here.

Maybe Dean really did need to learn to move past that—every angel, demon, and monster who’d ever heard of them knew that his little brother was his weakness. It had been used against them time and again. But he wasn’t there yet.

So he told Cas to leave, despite everything inside him screaming to do the opposite.

The worst part, perhaps, was that Cas understood. All the shit excuses Dean made up, about all of them being safer if they were apart, were bought and believed by Cas, who agreed to leave with no argument.

No. The worst part was the look of hurt on his all-too human features.

Charlie was the closest thing to a normal best friend he had, probably ever. All his friends were hunters or monsters or fallen angels, and most of them were dead at that. But Charlie, despite knowing all that went bump in the night (and her surprising tendency to end up in the middle of it), had maintained a normal life.

But then, like everything Dean cared about, Charlie died.

And then, with the kind of luck they were only occasionally graced with, she wasn’t dead.

He wanted to tell her everything—from the angel possessing his brother, to the ex-angel he’d kicked out. But he didn’t. He didn’t even tell her about the demon in the dungeon, or the prophet who was trying to carve out something resembling a normal life. He told himself he kept it all from her to protect her, and them, from all the shit that was after them, and mostly that was true. But he could also see, with perfect clarity, the expression on her face if she found out about Ezekiel. While she might have understood why he did, she could and would lay on the guilt trip for keeping it from Sam.

It wasn’t just that he was trying to get out of the world’s worst research project with Sam and Kevin—which he absolutely was—but this was the first time he’d heard from Cas since he’d left the bunker. If he’d waited this long to call, then it must’ve been a real case, and… and Dean just wanted to see him.

And if it had been an easy open-and-shut case, he might’ve left it at that, and respected Cas’ apparent desire to stay out of it.

But the fact of the matter was: he had no idea what could vaporize someone like this. He needed help.

He watched Cas from outside the Gas n Sip, and he knew, he _knew_ that he loved him. He wasn’t exactly sure what kind of love it was, but ultimately it didn’t matter. He loved him, and he’d tossed him out on his ass to fend for himself, newly human and lost in the world.

“Good to see you too, Cas,” he said. Dean liked to think he was fairly well-verse in reading the expressions and body language of Angel-Cas, but the intricacies of Human-Cas were lost on him.

Everything about Human-Cas was lost on him.

But if the guy wanted a normal life… well, he deserved a shot at it. Maybe he could succeed where he and Sammy had always failed.

But then Cas joined them on another angel case, and really, Dean should’ve been _thrilled_ , but there’s Ezekiel, who already had his panties in a twist because of the case, and there’s Sam, who of course Dean had lied to about Cas’ reasons for leaving, and then there was Cas, who was somehow _even worse_ at behaving as a human than he was before.

The whole thing was a mess.

He wanted to tell Cas the truth. Hell, he would’ve given anything to tell _Sam_ the truth.

Instead he continued playing an intricate game, where he didn’t know half the rules and the web of lies he had constructed was surely going to be the noose he’d later be hung on.

But the noose hung Kevin.

Kevin, _an innocent kid_ , paid the price for Dean’s selfish decisions.

“I came as soon as you called,” Cas said. The trench coat was back, the whole Castiel uniform. Dean tried to smile at that, but his heart just wasn’t in it. “Dean, what happened?” he asked, eyes falling on the broken furniture strewn around the room.

Dean was just barely holding it together. If Cas had arrived an hour or two earlier, he would’ve found him not holding it together at all. Now…

“I screwed up,” he said, willing himself not to break. And he told Cas everything.

“I got played,” Dean said.

“I thought I was saving Heaven.” Cas shrugged. “I got played, too.”

“So, you’re saying we’re both a couple of dumbasses?”

“I prefer the word _trusting_ ,” Cas said. “Less dumb, less ass.”

Dean might’ve chuckled at that, if it weren’t for his brother being tortured down the hall. He vastly preferred this version of Castiel. His humor was subtle, his mannerisms stoic, and everything about him was distinctly _other_ , but it all suited him well, not unlike the coat.

“A demon and an angel walk into my brother,” Dean said. “It sounds like a bad joke.” Damn the lengths he would go to save Sam, but this was so far out of his comfort zone.

He’d really screwed the pooch on this one.

And he knew Sam might not forgive him—hell, that’s the whole reason for the lying and the secrets—but knowing how Sam would react, and _experiencing_ his reaction? Whole different ballpark.

“I was ready to die, Dean,” Sam said.

“I know,” Dean said. ‘I wasn’t,’ he didn’t say. But he hadn’t been prepared for all the consequences either, hadn’t been prepared to lose Kevin. “I’m poison, Sam. People get close to me, they get killed. Or worse.” He told himself that he helps more people than he hurts, that he did it for the right reasons, and he believed it. But no matter how true it may have been, it doesn’t even out. No matter how many people he’d saved, it didn’t make up for the ones he didn’t. All the people he’d failed, and worse, all the people he’d put in harm’s way… nothing made up for it.

So, he left. He left Sam and Cas behind. They would take care of each other, and more importantly, they would be safe _from him_.

He drove alone.

No Sammy in the seat next to him.

It was fine.

Beads of rain collected on the windshield, scattering light from the lampposts illuminating the highway.

He was alone.

He had done this before—long ago, when Sam was at Stanford and Dad was off on his own—but it felt different now. Wrong. Unnatural.

Lonely.


	6. Quiet Your Mind

He’d done a lot of stupid shit over the years, had a lot of stupid plans, and working with Crowley?

Well, working with Crowley probably didn’t even count for the worst thing he’d done that year. He still hated it though.

“If your daddy could see you now,” the retired hunter said, shame in her voice.

Ha. If only she knew. One of his best friends was a vampire (albeit a dead one), he’d knocked up an Amazon, and more recently, had let his brother be possessed by not only an angel, but a demon too. If John had still been alive, he would’ve disowned his ass so fast.

Meeting Cain, the father of murder, the first demon, whatever the hell he was, was intimidating, sure, but only because _Crowley_ was visibly terrified. Cain himself seemed, at first, awfully tame. Hearing him talk about his bees with such fondness, and Dean’s first stupid thought was how Cas would probably have gotten along well with him.

You know, if it weren’t for the demon thing.

“I felt connected to you, right from the beginning,” Cain said. “Kindred spirits, if you will.”

No, they were nothing alike. “I didn’t kill my brother.” It made his skin crawl, just thinking about it.

“No, you saved yours. Why?”

Nothing. Alike.

If they were, Cain would have known the answer to that. Because family was _everything_. But if Cain felt that, then he wouldn’t have been the biblical villain that he was. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing here, and I don’t really care. Just give me the damn blade.”

“Abel wasn’t talking to _God_. He was talking to Lucifer,” Cain said. “Lucifer was going to make my brother into his pet.”

Dean felt chills in his spine. Shit. Hadn’t one of the angels told him, back in the days before the Apocalypse, that Cain and Abel were their ancestors or something? That was what made them the ideal vessels for Michael and Lucifer? _Shit_.

“I couldn’t bear to watch him be corrupted, so I offered a deal: Abel’s soul in Heaven for my soul in hell.”

And that didn’t just give him chills, it made is stomach churn. Dean had made damn near the same deal, hadn’t he? A deal that had changed the course of their lives irrevocably.

“Lucifer accepted… as long as I was the one who sent Abel to Heaven,” Cain explained. “So, I killed him. I became a soldier of Hell, _a knight_.”

Maybe they weren’t so dissimilar. They had made bad decisions for the right reasons. But Cain had killed his brother and the love of his life.

They weren’t the same at all.

Taking the Mark probably did make the top of the list of stupid decisions Dean had made over the years.

He just didn’t know it yet.

Learning the Garth was bitten was a punch to the gut that Dean couldn’t have prepared himself for.

Logically, he knew that bad shit happened to hunters all the time—it was just a fact of the life—but still he couldn’t help but blame himself a little bit. He wasn’t directly responsible, he knew that, but by extension of knowing him, the universe had screwed Garth over, bad.

He wanted to trust him, when he explained that he didn’t hurt people, that their _pack_ didn’t hurt people. But it was a lot to take it, a lot to trust on blind faith.

Still, if a vampire could live a fairly normal life on bagged blood and be Dean’s friend… then yeah, maybe a werewolf could live on animal hearts. Hell, if Dean was willing to work with _Crowley_ … well, it would be hypocritical not to give Garth’s story a chance. Besides, they had been drawn here because of Garth’s mug in the news and cattle mutilations, not on reports of people with their hearts ripped out.

And Dean really, _really_ didn’t want to have to put down a friend.

“I’ll send you that postcard,” Sam said, getting out of the car.

Things between them were tense, and wrong, and the last time it felt like this… actually, he couldn’t remember a time when it had been this bad between them. This _sucked_.

And he couldn’t do it.

“Listen, the night we went our separate ways—”

“You mean the night you split?”

He was shit at apologies, and the words ‘I’m sorry’ never actually came out. But he was sorry. Not just for leaving, but for how he left things, for how everything happened. He wasn’t sorry he saved Sam, never in a million years would he be sorry for that, but he was sorry for the agency he took away in doing so.

They’d been down this road before, hunting separately, living separate lives, and it never worked. They were better together.

But that wasn’t quite true, was it? _Dean_ was better when they were together. Sam had always managed pretty damn well when they were apart.

“We don’t see things the same way anymore,” Sam said. “I don’t trust you, anymore. Not the way I thought I could.” Talking him out of closing up Hell, tricking him with Gadreel… Dean knew it was bad. But if it came around again, if he had to make that choice a second time…

He would do it again, exactly the same.

“We’re family,” Dean said. Because at the end of the day, that was what mattered.

“You say that like it’s some kind off cure-all, like it can change the fact that everything that’s ever gone wrong between us has been _because_ we’re family.” Mom’s deal to save dad, dad’s deal to save Dean, Dean deal to save Sam… and that was just the tip of the iceberg. The lengths they had gone to save each other… there was nothing Dean wouldn’t do to save his brother, and he’d thought Sam would do the same.

“So, what, we’re not family now?”

Still, he would rather have him than not.

When they got back to the bunker, Cas was long gone. He’d probably left before Sam had gone off to hunt on his own, it didn’t make much sense for him to hang around there on his own, not now that he had his grace back and was renewed with purpose.

Dean supposed he could’ve called, or even texted, but they weren’t the ‘call just to chat’ type, were they?

But he and Sam weren’t brothers anymore, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, which meant Cas was pretty much the only person he had left.

He typed out a message and deleted it three times before saying, “Fuck it,” and just hit send. **Sam and I are hunting together again.**

Several minutes passed with no reply. He hadn’t expected much, but he’d expected _something_. Cas did know how to text, didn’t he? He thought about it for a moment and came to the conclusion that he wasn’t actually sure.

Dean rolled his eyes, wondering why it mattered, and wandered off to the archives. Maybe he could find something more about Cain.

His phone chimed. **Good,** was all the message said.

Dean made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. Leave it to Cas to be abrupt and to the point. What had he been expecting? A heartfelt congratulations? Disappointment?

 **How goes the angel hunt?** Dean asked.

A few moments later, the phone started to buzz.

“Hey, Cas.”

“ _What’s wrong?_ ” Cas asked.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just checking in.”

Cas sighed. “ _Not well, I’m afraid. It’s chaos,_ ” he said. “ _What about you? How are things there?_ ”

“It’s fine, I’m handling it.”

“ _So, something_ is _wrong_ ,” Cas said.

Dammit. “It’s fine,” Dean said again, more forcefully.

“ _Dean_.”

“Dammit, Cas.” He shook his head in frustration. “It sucks, okay. I’m home, were working together, but it’s not the same. He doesn’t… he says we can’t be family anymore, that’s how things get messy.”

His admission was met with silence, so he continued on to fill the void.

“Anyway. I just wanted to let you know I’m back.”

“ _If it’s bothering you so much, perhaps you should talk to him,_ ” Cas said.

Dean sighed. If only it were that easy. “No can do, buddy. That’s what _brothers_ would do. And apparently we ain’t that anymore.”

“ _Dean_ ,” he said again.

“Bye, Cas.”

“You know, Sam, I saved your hide back there. I saved you hide at the church. And the hospital. I may not think things all the way through, but what I do, I do because it’s the right thing. And I’d do it again.”

“That’s the problem.” Sam cut right to the core of who Dean was, damn near eviscerating him. “You think what you’re doing is worth it, because you’ve convinced yourself that you’re doing more good than bad… but you’re not.”

Sammy was wrong. Of course he had regrets about shit, but at the end of the day, the two of them were hunting together. The world was better off.

For a moment, he thought he was getting through to Sam, that they could agree on this.

“Be honest with me,” Sam said. “You didn’t save me _for me_. You did it for _you_. I was ready to die; I should have died. But you didn’t want to be alone. That’s what all this boils down to: you can’t stand the thought of being alone.”

Dean scoffed, laughed it off like Sam was making a bigger deal out of it than it ought to be. But he turned his back, building up the walls where Sam couldn’t see. He never felt like he had to _hide_ from Sam before, not like this.

“You’re certainly willing to do the sacrificing, as long as you’re not the one being hurt.”

As if Sam thought it was so easy, to be the one left behind?

“Alright, you want honest?” And screw the walls he wasn’t finished rebuilding. This was _his brother_. “If the situation were reversed, and I was dying, you’d do the same thing.”

“No, Dean. I wouldn’t.”

Oh.

So that was it, then.

They had always had different views on things like _home_ and _family_ , but Dean had thought…

Well, it didn’t matter what he thought. He was wrong. They really weren’t brothers anymore, were they?

The days following that revelation were among the loneliest Dean had every been—matched only by the time he’d thought Sam was in Hell. But Sam wasn’t in Hell, he was _here_. They were living together and hunting together, but in every sense of the word, they were separate.

He didn’t realize how important the mindless chatter was, until it was gone. There was no bickering over breakfast, no jokes in the car, there was just work.

It didn’t help that Cas was more distant than ever, working the angel situation on his own, and every time Dean had tried to initiate a conversation with him, he’d been met with weirdness and dropped calls.

Sometimes he wondered why he even liked the strange little guy.

He wished he could call Charlie, but he had a heavy suspicion that cell phones didn’t work in Oz. She would’ve known what to say.

She probably would’ve just told him to buck up and talk about shit like an adult. Still, it would’ve been nice to hear from her.

 _‘You don’t have any friends_ ,’ Sam’s voice echoed in his head. ‘ _All your friends are dead.’_

And that was the real kicker, wasn’t it? Damn near everyone he knew and cared about had died somewhere along the way. He was left with practically nothing of his own.

There had been a time he didn’t need anyone but Sammy.

What was he supposed to do, now that he didn’t have him, either?

“ _Hey, Dean._ ”

“Hey, Jody,” he said, not entirely certain when he’d made the decision to call her.

“ _You boys working a case?”_

It wasn’t unusual for them to drop her a line if they were heading into trouble—where they were, and who best to contact if she didn’t hear from them in a couple days. They knew a lot of hunters these days, but she was one of the few they called friend.

He had refused to think of Jody as anything more than that, couldn’t think of her as even remotely approaching familial, though his traitorous mind would occasionally let through the words ‘she would be a great mom’. She would’ve been. But the problem with any of those thoughts was, well, being family with them wouldn’t have earned her anything but an early grave.

“No, no,” he said. What was he supposed to say? Why had he called. “Nothing right now.”

“ _Everything okay?_ ” she asked, shifting from Sheriff-Hunter to whatever his traitor mind didn’t try to call ‘mom’.

“Everything’s fine,” he said, then rolled his eyes at how stupid he sounded.

“ _Uh huh_ ,” she said. “ _Isn’t it, like,_ your job _to lie? Wanna try that one again?_ ”

Dean sighed. In the dozen or so things he’d run through his head, every one of them sounded dumb, impetuous, or childish. “I screwed up,” he said finally. “I made a decision for Sammy, and he didn’t like it. Now it’s like we’re not even brothers.”

“ _Have you tried saying you’re sorry?_ ” Jody asked after a few moments of contemplation.

Dean laughed. “Well that’s the problem, huh. ‘Cause I ain’t sorry.”

Explaining the situation involved a whole lot of backstory. She’d only just discovered a few months ago that angels were real, and they hadn’t really gotten to the part where they were mostly dicks. But Dean explained, as best he could, all the shit that had happened.

And it wasn’t like he was expecting her to take his side—he wasn’t even sure he wanted her to. But talking seemed to help, in the moment at least.

“ _Have you looked at it from his perspective,_ ” she asked, once he’d told her as much as he could.

“I’ve tried,” he said. “And you know, I sorta get it. I knew what I was doing, I knew how he would feel about it. But there’s no version of this where I wouldn’t do it again.”

“ _I know,_ ” she said. “ _I don’t think you’d be Dean Winchester if you wouldn’t do anything for your brother_.”

He had thought maybe things would get easier after Kevin’s whole “Get over it,” speech, but while Sam was promising to honor Kevin’s wishes in one breath, he was turning his back on Dean in the next.

Eventually, though, things did start to feel normal again. He wasn’t sure when, but it was probably right around the time everything started to feel _wrong_.

Maybe ‘normal’ wasn’t the right word. He had no idea what normal felt like anymore. But the weirdness had leveled off, and the wedge driven between them was smaller, more bearable.

When the First Blade first touched his hand, they were connected. He felt like… like the ocean. Tumultuous, yet eerily serene. He didn’t think he’d ever felt anything so peaceful in his life, even as the Mark burned white-hot in his flesh.

He dropped the Blade. There was calmness there, but there was something else too; something familiar, yet unknown, and he wasn’t ready for it.

Killing Magnus though, it triggered something. The Blade whispered to him, impossible words that he couldn’t understand, but wormed into his soul nonetheless, like a voice calling out to him.

“It’s over,” a voice cut through the whispers. “Dean! Drop the Blade.”

It clattered to the ground.

“ _What’s honorable about a miniature bar in a motel room?_ ” Cas asked. Dean half-smiled as he pictured the curious tilt of his head.

“Everything,” Dean said.

“ _How are you, Dean_?” Cas asked in a weirdly fond tone that threw Dean off more than a little. Judging by Sam’s expression, he was trying to figure out what exactly it meant too.

“I’m fine, Cas. How ‘bout you?” he asked, trying to deflect the weirdness.

“ _I miss my wings,_ ” Cas said. “ _Life on the road… smells_.”

Sam and Dean shared a chuckle at that.

For a moment, everything seemed right. Though Cas was grounded, and the Mark of Cain’s downside was beginning to become apparent, this moment felt as it should: the three of them, working a case together, though separate, like the semi-functional family that they were.

“I got a match,” Sam said, flicking through police records.

“You sure you’re alright?” Dean asked, once Cas was back with him, out of Metatron’s grasp. He _seemed_ alight, but he also seemed to, at least partially, understand a Star Wars reference, which in itself was cause for concern.

“Yes,” Cas assured them. “Are you?” he asked then, his eyes boring into Dean. “There’s something different about you.

“I’m fine,” he said, giving Cas a pat on the shoulder as he started to walk away—which turned out to be a mistake, because it opened to door for Cas to grab him by the arm and unceremoniously reveal the Mark. “Dammit, Dean,” he said, and _hey_ , wasn’t that usually his line?

It was a means to an end, a means to killing Abaddon. He could deal with whatever shit came with it.

“Keep an eye on him,” Cas told Sam, as though he couldn’t hear them through the car.

As if Sam was doing anything more than pretending to care about Dean.

He was completely honest in his explanation to Sammy, about why he didn’t clue him in on Crowley’s warning. Sam may have stopped caring what happened to Dean, but the reverse was not true, would never be true, and when it came to killing Abaddon, having Sam in the room would only be a liability.

Killing her wasn’t like killing Magnus. That had given him a rush, but this was something else, something unlike anything he’d ever felt.

He felt unstoppable.

“Dean, stop!” Sammy’s voice cut through the whispers once more. “You can stop,” he said.

Dean saw the Blade in his hand, _the blood_ , and realized what he had done. He forced his hand to open, to drop the Blade.

“It’s over,” Sam said. Abaddon was dead.

But it didn’t feel over.

Though it felt good to be working with Cas again, Dean had serious misgivings about the rest of the angels. It wasn’t just blanket hatred for them, as he was starting to get that most of them were not the manipulative, power-hungry, Apocalypse-loving dipshits that Michael and Zachariah and their ilk had been. No, they were sheep, which might’ve been worse. They followed orders, and they flocked to whomever would give them, with very little original thought of their own.

And Cas as their leader? It was a dangerous position for everyone. Hadn’t they been down this road before? Hadn’t that misguided attempt at governing them been the thing that led to death and Leviathan?

Weren’t these the same angels that, just a few months ago, had been gunning for Cas’ head?

But good things, if this could be called that, seldom lasted long for them.

This time, it was Dean’ head they were calling for.

And when the angel blade was thrust into Cas’ hand, Dean honestly wasn’t sure what Cas was going to do. He looked at Dean with regret and sorrow, and Dean was certain, in that moment, he wasn’t going to choose him.

Maybe he didn’t deserve to be spared anyway. Because Dean would cut through every last one of these douchebag angels without a second thought.

Every last one of them, but Cas. He didn’t think he was capable of that. Not yet.

“No. I can’t,” Cas said, the blade dropping to his side.

And then the angels were gone, leaving him with the humans he would always choose over them.

Dean would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little disappointed that they left without a fight.

“You really think that we three will be enough?” Cas asked.

“We always have been.”

Sure, Sam was mad at him, and Cas was low on angel juice, but, well, that was par for the course, wasn’t it? Hell, they had stopped the Apocalypse with less.

Sam’s voice called out to them, warning of the intruder.

“I’m not here to fight,” Gadreel said, his hands raised in surrender. “Metatron, he’s… something needs to be done.”

“And should we trust you?”

Dean could barely hear Gadreel’s words over the blood pumping in his ears. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

“You don’t trust me, fine. I’ve… made mistakes. But haven’t you? Haven’t we all? At least give me a chance.” And heck, maybe he had a point there.

And maybe if circumstances were different, he could’ve left it to Sammy. After all, it was Sam’s body he had taken for a spin, Sam’s hands he’d killed Kevin with.

But Sammy wouldn’t make the decision that needed to be made here. So, while Dean accepted the truce with one hand, he took the Blade across his chest with the other. Gadreel was at fault for everything: for the wedge between him and Sam, for sending Cas out on his own for so long, for _Kevin’s death_. He was to blame for all of it.

The only thing he regretted was letting Sam and Cas stop him before he finished the job.

“Something is _wrong_ with you, Dean,” Sam said. “Until we figure out what it is, this is where you have to stay.”

What a bunch of bullshit. “And you two are gonna do what? Take on Metatron yourselves?” An angel running on knockoff batteries and the human with no power to speak of. And their plan was to lock up the only person who had a _shot_ at taking him down? Bullshit.

But with the Blade out of his hands, the fog in his mind started to clear. He could still feel it, could hear it calling out to him, but being separated from the Blade, he could see, albeit with limited clarity, what was happening to him.

Hunger.

Bloodlust.

The Blade was making him more powerful, but it was almost making him a slave to it.

Separated from the Blade, separated from _everything_ , he could almost curb the cravings, but the need to kill was so strong, stronger than he could ever have imagined.

Hell of a downside.

“It’s better this way,” he said, as Sammy tried to stay positive. “The Mark. It’s making me into something I don’t wanna be.”

“We’ll worry about the Mark. We’ll figure it out later,” Sam said, helping him to his feet, holding Dean’s chest together with the hunter equivalent of duct tape and bubblegum.

“What happened to you being okay with this?” Dean asked. That’s what Sam had said, wasn’t it, that he wouldn’t burn down the house to save Dean, that they weren’t family anymore?

“I lied.”

“Ain’t that a bitch.”

He was dying, that much he knew. Cas and Gadreel had, hopefully, saved the say, but Dean wasn’t going to make it out the other side, not this time. They’d been through a lot of shit over the years, through ups and downs, but they had done a lot of good. He wished he’d be there to see more. “I’m proud of us,” he said.

Then he died.


	7. To Take the Fall

As was so often the case with Winchesters, he wasn’t dead for long.

No, death would’ve been too easy.

Instead, he awoke as the one thing he feared becoming most. He had that nightmare before going to Hell, and still had it at least once a month since, the one where it warped and twisted his soul into a demon, a _monster_.

Only this wasn’t a dream, this was just his reality now. He was a demon, Crowley was his _friend_ , and he had to keep his newly demon ass far, far away from Sam and Cas.

That wasn’t one of Crowley’s stipulations, it was one of his own (though, Crowley hadn’t argued it for a second). It was safer for everyone that way. What the Mark was doing to him, what it _had done_ to him… he was a danger to everyone he cared about.

And he did care about them still. Cared enough to stay away.

The real kicker was, he wasn’t even a good demon—good at _being_ a demon, that was. Sure, he had the revelry down pat, what with the orgies and copious drinking, and yeah, every couple of days, an Abaddon groupie would find their way onto his Blade, but it wasn’t exactly like he was going out and murdering innocents, eating babies, or any other typical demon past time. Hell, he hadn’t even brutalized any livestock. Mostly he just worked his way from bar to bar, fucking and getting fucked by chicks and dudes alike, drinking heavily, and engaging in shameless karaoke.

The bloodlust was easier to keep at bay now, whether because of the demon he had become, or the steady stream of shithole demons, he wasn’t sure.

Of course, Crowley wasn’t exactly satisfied with their current arrangement. He’d played the game, indulged in the Dean and Crowley _Howl at the Moon_ Tour for a while, but then it became clear what he really wanted.

Dean Winchester at his side, ruling over Hell, what, as his _queen_? His concubine?

His executioner?

Being a demon didn’t make feelings go away. He had thought that, before. Demons were cold, cruel, heartless monsters, and sure, Dean was all of that and more sometimes. But he wasn’t emotionless.

In some ways, being a demon made his feelings stronger. Stronger, but more chaotic. More dangerous. Things that might’ve irritated him before, sent him into full blow rage now, and simple lust had tricked him into thinking there was something more on a handful of occasions. But it wasn’t just the so-called bad emotions that got blown out of proportion, it was the good ones too.

He _ached_ to see Sammy and Cas again, to be on the road in his car with his family. The love he felt, in the rare moments he let himself think about them, was brighter than any sun, and deeper than the Pit, and went far beyond any darkness in his soul.

The problem though, with love in the heart of a demon, was that it wasn’t pure. It was warped and twisted like his soul, into something that sometimes felt like loathing.

“Right now, I’m doing all I can to not to come over there and rip your throat out _with my teeth_.” Sammy, the brother he loved, the brother who swore he didn’t love him back. And yet, somehow, here he was, trying to _save_ him? “I’m giving you a chance, Sam. You should take it.”

“I’m gonna have to pass.”

“Well, I’m not walking out that door with you. I’m just not. So, what are you gonna do? Gonna kill me?”

“No.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done. I might deserve it.”

He probably deserved it more for any number of things he’d done while he was human.

And maybe he wanted to die. Maybe he _hoped_.

Not that there was anything Sam could do to jumpstart that train. The only thing in the world that could kill him now was in his own hands, and useless in any other. Death… well, death would’ve been too easy.

“I don’t care. I’m your brother, and I’m here to take you home.”

Dean laughed at the sheer, sentimental absurdity of that statement.

He didn’t have a brother.

Sam had made that all too clear.

“What the hell are we doing to him, Cas?” Sam asked. “Even after I gave him all that blood, he still said he didn’t want to be cured, that he didn’t want to be human.”

“Well, I see his point,” Cas replied. “You know, only humans can feel real joy, but… also such profound pain. This is easier.”

The feeling of the black leaving his eyes was an odd sensation, but nothing compared to the reshaping of his soul.

And for a moment, just a moment, he didn’t remember.

“You look worried, fellas,” he said, sounding not nearly as tired as he felt. Sam splashed him with holy water, and it didn’t burn, but why should it have?

And then he remembered dying.

“Welcome back, Dean.”

Blood spilling out of his chest.

_‘What happened to you being okay with this?’_

_‘I lied.’_

And then he remembered everything else.

He focused on the pictures—the sentimental crap that reminded him that there was something more. More than just the endless disaster, more than the shit that had them fighting to save the world or else fighting each other.

More to him than just the monster he had become.

The demon… the demon wasn’t the monster. He was. Sure, he’d done some good in the world, maybe, but—

A knock at the door dragged him out of his memories. “Yeah?”

“You look terrible,” Cas said.

“It wouldn’t kill you to lie every now and again.” But Dean liked that he was honest to a fault. That, at least, felt real.

“No, it wouldn’t kill me, I just… you…”

“Forget it,” Dean said. “You on the other hand: lookin’ good. Are you back?”

“At least temporarily,” he said, and then said something vague about Crowley and a woman out in the car, and Dean really, really didn’t want to know the rest of that story.

“Thank you,” Dean said instead. “For stepping in when you did.” This conversation felt particularly difficult, strained more than he was accustomed to with Cas. He had no idea where they stood, which in itself wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar feeling, but it wasn’t usually like this. Were they friends still? He didn’t know. Cas’ expression didn’t look like that of someone who wanted to kill him, but Dean was still reeling from being a fucking _demon_ , so he couldn’t be too sure. “What does Sam say? Does he want a divorce?”

“I’m sure Sam knows that whatever you said or did, it wasn’t really you. It certainly wasn’t all you.”

“I tried to kill him, Cas.” It may not have been the real him; this version of him came complete with a moral compass (albeit one that didn’t always point north) and undying love for his brother. That other version though… it would be easy to dismiss it as being _Not Dean_ , but in a lot of ways, it was still him. And it had certainly felt real.

But they were brothers, they had been through thick and thin together; he hoped Cas was right, that all of that counted for something. “It’d take a lot more than trying to kill Sam with a hammer to make him want to walk away.”

And damn if that wasn’t completely fucked up. “I’m glad you’re here, man,” Dean said, but he already knew it wouldn’t be enough to keep the angel around. He always had one foot out the door.

“Maybe you should… take some time, before you get back to work. Allow yourself to heal,” Cas said. “The timing might be right; Heaven and Hell seem to be reasonably back in order. It’s quiet out there.”

The world wasn’t ending, no one they loved was dying. Maybe he was right.

“You could do the same,” he offered. He knew the answer.

“I have things I have to take care of,” Cas said, pausing at the door. He smiled slightly. “Maybe next time.”

Sam returned a while later with burgers from their favorite place in town, and just… hung out with him. Dean wasn’t sure what he was expecting here, not really, but it certainly wasn’t for Sam to sit down on the bed next to him, and watch whatever Netflix recommended for them while they ate dinner in peaceful silence. He wasn’t expecting forgiveness, or for things to return to normal, but…

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually.

Sam offered him a small smile. “Me too.”

They took Cas’ suggestion of a little vacation time. Dean cleaned up the car, giving her a once-over from top to bottom, and they packed some brewskis and hit the road. They had no destination in mind, they just drove, stopping here and there to just enjoy the moment.

Dean couldn’t remember the last time they’d taken a vacation. He wasn’t actually sure they’d _ever_ taken one, not like this anyway.

He closed his eyes and breathed in deep.

This was nice. Calm, peaceful.

Something under his skin started to itch, but he ignored it.

They needed this. It was good.

And it _felt_ good. For the first time in a long while, things felt right between them. No fighting, no secrets, no pent-up anger because of the fighting and the secrets.

They just parked their pretty little asses near the too-ironic-to-pass-up “No Hunting” sign, sip their beers, and take solace in the fact that whatever was going wrong with the world right then… just wasn’t their problem.

“Taking some we-time,” Dean said. “Best decision we ever made.”

“Here that,” Sam agreed.

“See that thing in the paper this morning?” Dean asked eventually.

“Maybe it was an animal kill,” Sam said. Neither of them was much good at leaving it all behind.

“It was _three_ kills, all in the same town, all in the last month.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We should call some guys, have ‘em fix it.”

Yeah, that was probably the smart idea. Someone else could take care of it. “Or…” The itch was strong, and only getting stronger. He may have been controlling things better now, a _lot_ better, newly human again and with the Blade far, far away. But the craving was still there, and the longer he let it fester, the worse things would get. “We could be in and out. It’s a milk run.” If they were working, he could distract himself from it.

“Right, that happens never,” Sam said.

“Look, Sam. What we’re doing here, it’s good, okay? You and me, hanging out… But I need to work.” Even if it weren’t for the Mark scratching under his skin, he’d never been one for the simple life. He needed to get back to work. “I need this.”

Sam thought on it for a moment. “If things go sideways, I mean, _an inch_ , you gotta give me the heads up.”

“Done. You got my word.”

And just like that, they were back in the game.

“Wow. That is some of the _worst_ fanfiction that I’ve ever heard.” Of course, she didn’t believe a word he was saying; they never do and…

Fake Dean and Fake Cas were kissing. Maybe kissing? He couldn’t tell from here, but they were definitely _embracing_. “What are they doing?”

“Uhhhh, kids these days call it hugging.” Sarcastic little shit.

“Is that in the show?” Dean and Cas didn’t hug, not like that.

“Oh, no. Siobhan and Kristen are a couple in real life. Although, we do explore the nature of Destiel in act two.”

Desti-what now?

“I don’t understand,” Sam said, after Dean updated him on the complete lack of monster clues. “Shouldn’t it be _Dea_ stiel?” Dean could’ve hit him.

“Really? That’s your issue with this?” Had he listened to _nothing_ else he’d said in the last ten minutes?

“No,” Sam said, laughing. “Of course it’s not my issue.”

And there was the open door. He could’ve said something, anything, outed himself being bi or whatever, and his brother might not have even batted an eye. He probably would’ve been perfectly fine with it.

But he didn’t.

“You know, how about ‘Sastiel’?” Sam asked. “Samstiel?” he added, furrowing his brow over which sounded better.

It was so, so much worse.

“Alright, you’re gonna do that thing, where you just shut the hell up, _forever_.”

Couldn’t they just get back to the case, instead of talking about which of them was or wasn’t sleeping with Cas?

“Casdean?” Sam proposed.

“Shut your face, get in the car.” They were _never_ going to talk about this stupid place again.

Things were good. Shockingly calm and quiet in a way that was almost troublesome. All the weird shit in the papers had a perfectly natural explanation that didn’t even require investigation. Though there were fully committed to getting back to work, vacation over, there just… weren’t many cases making headlines. Dean was so bored he had signed up for a _dating app_.

Which Sam mocked him mercilessly for.

Of course, Dean’s date turned out to be a prostitute for a demon ring, which, honestly? No big deal.

It was good, even.

Because this was what Sam and Dean did best, and stumbling onto a run-of-the-mill case like this? Was good. It felt, for the first time in _years_ , like they weren’t just the guys who save the world, maybe they really could just get back to do this. Whatever the hell this was.

He barely remembered what it felt like to not have some epic disaster or another apocalypse on their heels.

Still, no matter how good of a place they were in right now, Dean hadn’t quite deluded himself into think it was permanent. He’d been in plenty of bad places before, and sometimes it felt like he would never get back out.

He put the gun in Cole Trenton’s hand. Five minutes.

“How can I believe you?” the kid asked. Dean could see the journey in his eyes though, the dawning realization that everything he _thought_ was true, from that one moment as a kid, was wrong.

“I get it,” Dean said. “That was your story. I got one of those too.” How his mother died… sometimes he wondered how much he actually remembered, and how much was just passed on from dad.

And that story? It was supposed to end with the thing that kill her, it was supposed to end with Azazel’s death.

But it didn’t. Instead it just shifted to something else, one thing after another that kept them on this train. “Those stories we tell to keep us going? Sometimes they blind us. They take us to dark places, the kind of place where I might beat the crap out of a good man, just for the fun of it.” Demon Dean? Wasn’t some _other_ things that he could just shift the blame to. It was still him, in a way. It was Dean, without all the baggage, without the things that held him back and kept him grounded. It was all id and nothing else.

“The people who love me? They pulled me back from that edge. Cole, once you touch that darkness, it never goes away.” It was always there, in the back of his mind, gnawing. “I’m past saving. I know how my story ends.” Happy endings weren’t in the grand scheme, not for him. Blade, gun, didn’t matter. It was gonna be bloody.

He didn’t want to die. Not today. Especially knowing what came next if he did. But he knew what was coming for him, eventually. “Question is, is that gonna be today? That gun?”

“What you said,” Sammy started, after all was said and undone with Cole and Rowena both. “About being past saving? Were you really—?”

“I was just telling the guy what he needed to hear.” And there he went, lying through his teeth again.

Jody running into a case at a sheriff’s convention was inconvenient—dozens of type-A law enforcement types all in one place, getting in the way of things they couldn’t understand… inconvenient.

But Jody running into and befriending Donna Hanscum in the middle of said case? Recipe for disaster.

Especially because Dean couldn’t for the life of him remember if the aliases they’d used then matched the badges in their pockets. He hoped Sam was better at keeping track of that shit than he was.

“You guys know my stalker?” Jody asked, her eyes going wide.

“She nearly blew a case for us last time.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to shake that ray of sunshine since I got here. She’s been helpful, but it’s tough keeping her out of this nightmare stuff, you know?”

Keeping her out of the nightmare was entirely out of their control this time though. She stumbled into it all on her own.

“For the first time since I’ve been back, I didn’t feel like the Mark was pushing me.”

“First time?” Sam asked, surprised. “Shit, Dean.”

“I felt like me again.”

Dean could see the concern in Sammy’s eyes. “Alright, so… That’s good, right?”

“Yeah.” Really good. For the first time, he could see a light at the end of the tunnel, a way out of this that didn’t end with black eyes and everyone he loved dead.

But good things never came without a decent helping of bad. They barely made it back home before the darkness was tugged at him again, demanding blood.

He buried it in cartoons, porn, beer, and all the greasy food he could get his fingers on.

“Is ketchup a vegetable?” Cas asked, studying the label of the bottle.

“Hell yes,” Dean said, dead serious. Okay, he wasn’t serious, if it was a vegetable, he probably wouldn’t have liked it so much. But playing with Cas’ lack of human understanding was one of his favorite past times, and one he got to indulge in far less often now that the angel had gotten the pop culture upgrade. “Alright, so spill. What’s with the family reunion?” He glanced around the diner to make sure now one was looking, then swapped his empty plate for Cas’ untouched burger.

“I don’t know,” Cas said. “I’ve just been thinking about people. I’ve helped some, but I’ve hurt some.” He sighed.

“So you’re having a midlife crisis,” Dean said.

“Well, I’m extremely old. I think I’m entitled.” Dean smiled.

“Cas, listen to me,” he said. “There’s just some stuff you gotta let go. The people you let down, the ones you can’t save. You gotta forget about ‘em, for your own good.”

“Is that what you do?” Cas asked, knowing full well the answer.

“That’s the opposite of what I do.” Dean didn’t think he had a single healthy coping mechanism to work with either. “But I ain’t exactly a role model.”

“That’s not true,” Cas said, looking into Dean’s eyes. His soft smile made Dean feel uncomfortable, like Cas was looking through him and straight to his soul. “How are you, Dean?” he asked, as Dean looked at everything but the angel next to him.

“Fine,” Dean said. Cas clearly didn’t believe him, so he doubled down. “I’m _great_.”

“No, you’re not.”

And fuck him. Fuck him for being able to read him so well. Who gave him that right? He’d lost the demon eyes, hadn’t he? Even if he still had the Mark, things were still better than they had been.

“It’s still affecting you?”

Dean tried not to think about it.

“Cas, I need you to promise me something.”

“Of course.”

“If I do go dark side, you gotta take me out. Knife me, smite me, throw me in the freaking sun, whatever. And don’t let Sam get in the way, ‘cause he’ll try. I can’t go down that road again. I can’t be that thing again.”

“What makes you think I even could?” Cas asked after several long moments of silence.

“Find a way,” Dean said. The previous attempt at killing him had turned him into a demon, and killing a Knight of Hell wasn’t any easier, that much he knew. That was what got them here in the first place. Desperation had driven him to taking the Mark, but there _had_ to be something else, something they had missed.

Cas shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.” He let out a small, mirthless laugh. “You know, Naomi had me kill you, over and over and over and over again? Copies, not the real you. She had me _practice_ so I wouldn’t choke up when it came time for the real thing. Hundreds, I don’t know, maybe thousands. And I still couldn’t do it. So, what makes you think this would be any different?”

Dean frowned down at his burger, trying to figure out what that meant.

The whole situation with Claire… Cas was hurting, Dean could see that much. She may have thought it was just guilt, but Dean knew it was more than that.

If he wasn’t so busy trying to eat and drink to feed the Mark, he might’ve even understood what he was feeling.

“I thought I could make it up to her,” Cas said.

“I don’t think you can,” Sam said. “Jimmy was her father. For some people that’s everything, you know?”

But Cas didn’t know, not really. “Did you love your father?” he asked Dean, as if somehow he didn’t already know the answer.

Dean gave it a moment of thought. “With everything I had,” he said.

Sam echoed the sentiment. “It wasn’t always easy, but yeah.”

Dean got it. The debt that Cas felt he owed to Claire, he understood. The kid was in trouble, maybe in a lot of trouble, and at the end of the day, all of it was because of their crusade.

Dean, well. Dean was barely keeping it together on a good day. He could keep things under wraps, but it was taking most of his self-control to do so. The drinking, stuffing his face, fucking every chance he got, it was all just barely enough to keep the thing fed, to keep him from falling off the wagon.

But one lucky hit, a little crack to the head…

He saw red.

“You guys don’t wanna do this,” he said, trying so hard to keep it down.

Heel to his nose and…

And he barely remembered what came next.

Claire’s screams brought him back.

“Tell me you had to do this,” Sam said, his hands on Dean’s face as he searched his eyes for… for what, Dean didn’t know.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean to.” He’d just blinked, and it was done.

“No. Tell me it was them or you!”

Dean opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He had nothing to offer but an uncertain shrug.

Claire’s scream haunted his nightmares.

_Everything_ haunted his nightmares, but especially that.

“You know, whatever Randy did, he didn’t deserve—” Cas started.

“I know,” Sam said, cutting him off. “Dean has had to kill before, we both have. But that was…”

“That was what?” Dean asked. Did he want to hear Sam say it, what he was? He wasn’t sure. “It was a massacre. That’s what it was.” His head was… fairly clear now. He couldn’t remember when he broke the mirror in his room, and the exact details of what had gone down last night were… hazy at best. But he was coherent _now_. “You know, there was a time I was a hunter, not a stone-cold killer.”

Neither of them quite looked Dean in the eyes. “You can say it,” he said. “You’re not wrong. I crossed the line.” He let out a shaky breath. “Guys, this thing’s got to go.”

“That won’t be easy.”

“Well then burn it off! Cut it off!” Whatever it took.

“It is more than just a physical thing,” Cas said, his frustration growing with Dean’s. They knew this much already, had been through all of this before. Dean didn’t care. He wanted it _gone_.

It was getting so much harder to control. For a while it had been, well, maybe not _easy_ , but it had been firmly under control.

Now? Now any little thing could set him off, and then all bets were off. He was a loose nuke with no target, just chaos and destruction.

Thus far, Sam and Cas had been there to pull him back, ground him, but what happened when they weren’t? They’d already learned the hard way what happened when they were too late—and there was a very fine line between Dean being mad and being homicidal.

He just wanted it to be over.

“I was gonna kill him. And I couldn’t stop myself.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Sam said, sitting down next to him. Dean hoped it were true, but damn if it didn’t feel like a lost cause. “Hey, remember what Cas said, about needing a powerful force?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So… I’ve been thinking. Cain still has the Mark, right? And he’s lived with it, for years. So, yeah, the Mark is strong, but… Maybe there’s a part of you that wants to give in to it. Maybe you have to fight that. Maybe part of that powerful force has to be _you_.”

Sam must’ve had some kind of unbelievable faith in him, to think that he could do that. But Dean knew…

Dean wasn’t that strong.

It came on without warning. There was no buildup to _homicidal maniac_ , he was just Dean one moment, and then gone the next. Maybe if there was more time, he could manage it, fight back against it.

But the instant he sensed a threat, the switch was flipped, he was seeing red.

“No!”

Claire’s voice was a shock to his system, buying him the time he needed to reboot. He found his footing, grounded himself, and when the axe came down, it was into a bench instead of a skull.

Crowley had thought the answer was in feeding the Mark, killing just enough to keep it sated. That had worked too, for a time. When he was a demon, anyway. Now that he was human, killing only seemed to make it hungry for more, made it harder to control.

Kate had said she mostly kept her werewolf urges in check with _yoga_ , which seemed equally absurd and unhelpful. He wasn’t very bendy, and he was even worse at meditation. Still, he was desperate, he’d try anything, so he added it to Dean’s Guide to a Homicide Free Lifestyle.

Cain probably did yoga. That psycho.

Cain had learned control by cutting himself off. He lived in the middle of nowhere, living almost completely separate from society. Dean supposed it made enough sense; there was no temptation there.

But he didn’t think that was going to work for him. _Alone_ was not something Dean handled well. It probably would’ve only made everything worse. No, seclusion wasn’t the answer, but maybe the opposite was. So far, the only thing that had any kind of success in grounding him was human connections.

“You made egg-white omelets?” Sam asked, eyeing the plate suspiciously.

“Breakfast of champions, you know, if you’re a dork like you.”

“And you slept past 7?”

“Until we get answers on this Mark of Cain shit, I am on a 12-step program not to backslide.”

“12-steps?”

“Hey, if Cain found a way to live with it after going dark side, then I just gotta find a way to keep it in check. So, I haven’t had a drink in a week, 8 hours of rack time every night, and now this masterpiece.” He frowned down at the omelet taunting him.

“That’s 3 steps,” Sam said. Yoga and making friends in town made four and five. If he joined Sammy on his morning runs, that made six. It was a work in progress.

“Shut up and eat.”

(Sam loved the omelet, because of-fucking-course he did.)

Charlie’s blood was on his hands.

It didn’t matter that it was Dark Charlie, or that she had started the fight.

His friend was bleeding and bruised and lucky to be alive.

And the blood was on his hands.

He tossed Sammy the keys to drive them own. He couldn’t.

For all his efforts, for all the _healthy lifestyle_ choices he’d made, it wasn’t enough. He still woke from nightmares ending with Claire’s scream. He could barely look at his own reflection without having damn near a panic attack. His hands shook no matter how hard he tried to steady them. He beat the shit out of his _friend_.

She spent the next few days resting in the bunker, despite Dean also being in the bunker. He could hardly look at her, he was so ashamed of what he had done.

“Charlie, I—” He what? What the hell was he supposed to say. _I’m sorry_? That didn’t even begin to cut it.

“We are going to fix this,” she said. “I’m not letting what happened to me, happen to you.”

“It’s already happened.”

“Cain found a way to live with it,” Sam reminded him.

“Right, after centuries of murder.” Dean didn’t have that kind of time.

“Yeah, well, there’s one thing that you have that he didn’t. You’re a Winchester,” she said. Dean rolled his eyes. Being Winchesters had brought them nothing but trouble since before they were born. “I forgive you, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t.” He probably never would. “I’m so sorry, kiddo,” he said. He hugged her gingerly. After what he had done… he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her any more than he already had.

“Then prove it,” she said. Don’t do it again. Don’t let this thing control you. Don’t let it consume you. Don’t let it take you away.

“Arrivederci, bitches,” she said, walking toward the door.

“You good?” Sam asked him.

“No.” No point in lying about it. He was so far from good, he wasn’t even sure what it looked like anymore.

“She’s right, you know,” Sam said. “You can do this.”

Dean wished he had their faith in him.

Cold turkey on all his vices hadn’t worked. Human connections didn’t help—Charlie was proof of that. Maybe if he had a couple thousand years, he’d get the hang of it, but he didn’t have the kind of time.

So, he buried himself into finding a solution. He spent nearly every waking moment on it, and nothing else. Reading and rereading every tangentially related text the Men of Letters had to offer.

And there was nothing.

“My peace is helping people,” he said. It had taken a while to figure it out, though he thought maybe he always knew. “That’s all I wanna do.” He wasn’t sure if it would be enough, in the long run, but it was enough _right now_. And Dean could live with that. “I’m done trying to find a cure, Sammy.”

“Dean, Cas is so close!”

“To what? We don’t even know if there is a cure.” They had found nothing to indicate that there was. Too many maybes, too many uncertainties. Dean was done.

“Nothing is guaranteed, Dean. So what?” Sam asked, always the fighter. “We can’t just stop fighting.”

He hadn’t made the decision lightly; it was serious. But Dean was tired. He was tired of pouring himself into tome after tome and coming up bupkis. He was tired of everyone he loved putting so much energy into saving him when there was no indication that he even could be saved—were they going to keep wasting their lives away until they were all dead?

No, Dean couldn’t live with that. He wasn’t worth that.

“So, this is it, you’re just gonna give up?”

“No, I’m not just gonna give up,” Dean said, and he really meant it this time. “I appreciate the effort, okay, I do. But the answer is not out there. It’s with me. I can’t keep waking up every morning with this false hope.” Because that’s all it was. Every night he fell asleep in defeat, and woke up thinking maybe, maybe today was the day. But it never was. “So I’m gonna fight it, ‘til I can’t fight anymore.”

He was content with his choice. He could live with this.


	8. Brought Me to My Knees

“You know when I said, that I would go down swinging when the time came? I meant that I was at peace with that,” he said. “I just didn’t realize the time would come so soon.” He wasn’t ready.

Shit.

There was still so much he wanted to do.

He’d thought, he’d _really_ believed he had things under control. He had been doing so well lately, keeping everything under control. And now he was going to give it all up.

He hadn’t deluded himself with dreams of a long, happy, carefree life, nor did he think he had a chance of settling down and having a family, though he sometimes thought about it, wondered…

But that was never in the cards for him. He had Sammy and Cas and Charlie, and that was enough.

But he had thought he would have more time with them.

“I’m scared, Sam.”

Holding the Blade again, _killing_ with it again, he didn’t know what it would do to him.

Or, rather, he knew exactly what it could do to him.

The thing that would come out the other side… it wasn’t Dean.

He reminded his friends of this, reminded them of what they would have to do, not just if he lost to Cain, but if he lost to the Mark.

“Happily,” Crowley said, but it didn’t sound sincere. They weren’t _friends,_ not by a long shot. Most days, he was reluctant to call him an ally. But today he would have to be; he was perhaps the only one of them who could do what needed to be done. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll give it back when you’re done?”

“If I survive, and I come out of there and _don’t_ give it back, you’ll all have a much bigger problem on your hands.”

He didn’t want to do this.

None of them wanted to do this.

But what choice did he have?

When the Blade toughed his hand again, adrenaline surged through him, chaotic whispers filling the space around him. It was angry and wanting. The was a power to it, a feeling he’d not quite forgotten, but not quite remembered. He wanted to drop it and run. He wanted to use it.

_Stop_.

Breathe.

Focus.

“Dean?” Sammy’s voice helped to ground him.

Dean looked up, smiling ever so slightly. He could do this. “I’m good.”

“This may be hard to believe in light of what I’m about to do to you,” Cain said. “But I care about you, Dean.” And Dean did believe that, in a strange way, despite the throbbing in his bones, the ache in every muscle. He could remember what it felt like to be a demon, to be _like Cain_. Twisted and frayed as it may have been, the capacity for caring was there. But it was wrong. “I’m saving you.”

“Saving me from what?” Dean spat back at him.

“From your fate. Has it never occurred to you?” he asked. “Have you never mused upon the fact that you’re living my life in reverse? My story began when I killed my brother, and that’s where your story inevitably will end.”

Dean shook his head. “No.” Never.

Cain kicked him in the ribs. “First, you’d kill Crowley; there’d be some strange, mixed feelings on that one.”

Dean tried to focus, not on Cain, but on himself. The Blade wasn’t calling out to him, not like it had done before, perhaps because now it was connected with its true owner, but he could still feel its presence. He could feel the Mark, demanding blood. He closed his eyes, trying to find stability. Cas. Sammy. He took a slow, careful breath. His friends, preparing to do what they might have to. Sam. Castiel. Even Crowley.

“Then you’d kill the angel, Castiel,” Cain said. “Now that one, that I suspect will hurt something awful.”

Dean faltered.

He remembered his first meeting with Cain—a very different man than the one that stood before him now, but perhaps closer to the _real_ Cain—remembered the story he’d told them. Killing his brother, killing Colette. _‘She knew who I was, what I was. She loved me unconditionally. She forgave me_.’ Even if her death had been, ultimately, Abaddon’s fault, he blood had still been on his hands. How had he lived with that?

“And then,” Cain said, bringing the Blade down to Dean’s throat. “And then would come the murder you’d never survive. The one that would finally turn you into as much of a savage as it did me.”

No.

“Your brother, Sam.”

He wouldn’t.

He wasn’t Cain.

This wasn’t his story.

It couldn’t be.

“The only thing that stands between you and that destiny is this blade. You’re welcome, my son.”

Dean drew the silvered blade sheathed at Cain’s side, raising it to deflect the First Blade, and by some stroke of sheer luck, it cut clean through Cain’s wrist. The Blade, still in his now-severed hand, fell to the ground as Cain’s mouth fell open is surprise and pain.

Dean reached for the blade, ignoring its growing whispers as he focused on Sammy and Cas.

“What’s the matter?” Cain asked.

Dean hesitated.

He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to _have_ to do this. Not just because he knew what it could do to him, but because Cain resonated with him. He could see now, where their lives might’ve been the same. They _weren’t_ the same, but they could’ve been. “Tell me I don’t have to do this,” he said, begging for some sign of the other Cain, of the man he’d met back at the ranch. “Tell me you’ll stop. Tell me that you _can_ stop.” And maybe, maybe he was begging for himself.

“I will never stop,” Cain said, bowing his head in acceptance.

And that was it then, wasn’t it? This is what he would become. Maybe today, maybe next week, maybe in forty years. It didn’t matter. One day, he was going to lose control. And there was going to be nothing that could stop him.

A dissonant crack of thunder sounded as he plunged the Blade into Cain’s back, but he wasn’t sure it _was_ thunder. In fact, he was certain the sound was within him. His whole body shook under the weight of it.

He closed his eyes and focused.

Breathe in.

Sam.

Breathe out.

Cas.

The force of the Mark, the call of the Blade. He would succumb to it.

But not today.

Everything happened behind a haze.

The Mark wasn’t _controlling_ him, not like it once had. He had things under wraps, as best he could.

But he didn’t feel like himself. He felt so far from normal, he wasn’t sure he could recognize just how far gone he was. He knew this wasn’t right, he knew it wasn’t him, but he couldn’t _do_ anything about it. His entire sense of self was fading.

And he didn’t know what he was becoming.

He clung to what he could—to the feelings that rang stronger than the rest. Family.

“Why are you letting mommy dearest tie you into knots?”

“Because…” Crowley paused for a moment, then went on, seeming to settle on an explanation that Dean would understand. “We’re family. Blood.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Dean said. Family… family was everything.

But family didn’t end with blood. And it didn’t start their either.

Damn, he wished Bobby were here. Maybe not at that exact moment, he didn’t need to be seen commiserating with the king of hell and teaching him about family (which, what the _fuck_?). But he missed Bobby fiercely, more so than he missed his actual flesh and blood parents.

But that was his point, wasn’t it? Family meant more than just the people who’d birthed you. It was the people who cared enough to stick through.

It was Sam, who had been through to much _shit_ with Dean, so much that should’ve driven a wedge between them, but instead stayed with him even though the worst of it.

It was Charlie, who called twice a week just to _talk,_ even though they were a thousand miles apart, even though he’d tried to kill her not that long ago.

It was Cas, who’d tried to do right by the angels time an again, but at the end of the day always went to bat for the Winchesters.

And it was Bobby, who was still the best father he had, even if he was dead and gone.

Eventually, that’s where they all would be. Ashes in the pyre.

Everyone but him.

Maybe, maybe if he was really lucky, Cas would still be there at whatever end finally came. Crowley too.

Honestly though, he just hoped his end would come before he had to watch Sammy die.

And hell, he was _tired_.

He wanted this stupid thing _gone_ and he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to become whatever this thing was making him.

Sam and Cas still looked at him like they thought he’d given up—and maybe he had, now, but not in the way they seemed to think. He was still fighting, and he was going to keep fighting for as long as he could.

But whatever cure they were still so certain they could find… he couldn’t rely on that. In his heart, he still had a flicker of hope that they were right, but in his head, he had to tell himself that this was it for him. This was the thing that was going to end him.

He had told Cas not to get too attached to Claire, but somehow it was Dean who connected with her. And despite the thing on his arm and all he had done to ruin her life, she seemed to accept him. All of them.

She was part of their family now—hell, maybe she always had been, in some way.

“She’s a good kid,” he told Jody over the phone. “She’s been dealt a shit hand.” He told her about Cas and Jimmy, and what had happened to her mom, and he didn’t hold back the shit he had done to the asshole who had pretended to be her father figure. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a flight risk, but Sammy thinks it might help if she has someone who…”

“ _Someone who believes her_?” Jody filled in.

“Yeah.”

“ _Of course, she’s welcome here_ ,” Jody said.

Dean thought maybe, if everything was different, he might’ve wanted her to come home with them. But their lives were far too dangerous, and these days Dean himself was a greater threat to her than most of the things they fought on a regular basis.

Not to mention she probably never wanted to see any of them again.

Claire hugged all of them goodbye, and it was far more than they deserved, but it left him with a faint flicker of hope that he tried not to examine too closely. He didn’t get to have a family; not like that.

Dean didn’t get to have family at all.

Charlie died.

Charlie died because she was trying to help _him_.

Part of him blamed Sam, for getting her involved with the Mark in the first place. But mostly he blamed himself.

And her death shattered him.

It broke things in him that he didn’t even know were there to break.

He was done. He tried to fight, to keep going through everything, but he just _couldn’t_.

This thing would destroy everything he cared about. It had already taken Charlie, and it was only a matter of time before it took Sam and Cas and Jody and Claire.

So, he was done.

He turned his back on Sam and Cas and planned to never go back.

It was safer for them that way.

That plan went all to shit, though, because they were too stupid and loyal to just let him go, no matter how much his pushed.

The Mark took over, and it was all Dean could do not to _kill_ Cas outright.

And this was exactly why he couldn’t stay.

There was going to come a day when he _couldn’t_ hold back, and he was going to kill the people he cared about more than anything.

Just like Cain had.

Just like Cain.

Screw this.

He wasn’t Cain, and Sam wasn’t Abel. They bore similarities, maybe, but that was all. Dean wasn’t going to kill his brother.

He was going to let his brother save him.

Screw destiny.

Free will had gotten them this far, hadn’t it? What was a little more?

So, yeah, screw destiny. Screw Death’s plan. Screw all of it.

He believed in family. He believed in Sam.


	9. From Out So Far Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really did not mean to leave the fic without updates for so long, but life got hectic and this chapter... it's actually been mostly finished for all that time, just a few missing scenes I struggled with. The good news is, the next handful of chapters were already written, so I should be cranking those out pretty quickly.
> 
> I had originally thought that I could get the whole thing out before s15 resumed, but that obviously didn't happen. Aaand, with most of what's happened, I can definitively say, this was Joss'ed by, well, everything post Galaxy Brain. I had hoped I might be able to continue to weave around canon, but my plans were uprooted, so *shrug* I hope ya'll continue to enjoy the story as I wish it had gone.

Things were good. Better than good, actually, it was the best they’d been in a _while_. Dean was finally free of the Mark, Sam wasn’t sharing his body with an angel, and Cas back home getting back to full strength. And more importantly, they sort of felt like a family again, for the first time in… he tried not to think about how long it had been.

Too long.

Things had been strained and weird for far too long.

But it was all behind them now, and they’d moved on to something resembling a functional dysfunctional sort-of family.

Things were good.

Which was particularly ironic, seeing how the Darkness was looming.

It seemed par for the course that the only time they had their shit together was when the world was ending.

Actually, they usually didn’t have their shit together even then, so all considered, things were looking up.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam said, stopping Dean as he turned to head off to bed. Cas was off somewhere else in the bunker, still resting up from the aftermath of Rowena’s spell.

“Yeah?”

Sam took a deep breath, and Dean was suddenly worried what he had to say. If Sam was physically preparing for his reaction, Dean wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. “When you sent Cas away, I know it was because Gadreel demanded it,” he started.

Dean couldn’t help but roll his eyes, but didn’t try to stop his brother. Things were good now, more than anything he just wanted to be past all the shit with Gadreel and the Mark and the angels.

But they’d learned the hard way, too many times, that _not_ talking about shit didn’t do them any good. So he’d let Sam say whatever it was that managed to bug him still, _two years later_.

“But I think you also kinda did it because of me. Because of what I said in the church.”

“The hell are you talking about, Sammy?”

“You thought that I was, I don’t know, jealous? That you would choose him over me—”

“I would never,” Dean said.

“I know. But I need _you_ to know that I don’t think that. He’s your best friend; hell, he’s my best friend, too. He’s family. All I’m trying to say it… don’t do that again.”

The old Dean would’ve given his brother shit for this conversation that was inching dangerously close to a chick-flick moment. The new Dean, or whatever he was now, was maybe too tired to care. “Deal.”

Things were different now. _He_ was different.

He just wasn’t sure how different; was he better or worse? He didn’t know.

When he tried to compare, the Dean from now to the Dean he was before he took the Mark, he came up empty. It had been part of him for so long, it felt, that he couldn’t quite remember who he was before.

He could really only compare Now to the Mark, not before. And those differences were such stark contrast that it almost wasn’t even worth comparing.

Still, he was so grateful to not have that thing gnawing at him any longer, even if it meant that there was possibly another apocalypse on the horizon.

He felt free.

Free of the Mark, certainly, but it was more than that. It wasn’t just that weight that had been lifted. Everything felt clearer.

He wasn’t the same person he was before he took the Mark. He didn’t think he could catalogue the changes, but he was sure he was irrevocably changed by it.

Anger came quicker now—not like it had with the Mark, not bloody and brutal, but like he just couldn’t bottle up the frustration like he used to.

But it wasn’t just anger. It was _everything_. In some way, the Mark had taught him not to bury everything on instinct. Every emotion he felt came stronger than it had before, and it was harder to push aside.

Or maybe he had just been with the Mark for so long that he’d forgotten what anything else felt like.

The diner was quiet, save for _Fool in the Rain_ playing through the speakers of the jukebox. The only other patron was a tired-looking old woman in the corner; it was far too early in the morning for anyone else.

Dean sat idly, watching Cas stir packets of sugar into a cup of coffee. There was something oddly performative about all of it—like he was following an instruction manual. But then, he just kept adding more packets, distracted by the process, never getting to the part where he _drank_ the coffee.

Though, Dean supposed, he was an angel, he didn’t need coffee. It begged the question: why had he ordered it? Was it merely to keep up appearances?

The remains of Dean’s breakfast sat forgotten on his plate as he watched his angel from across the table. He smiled, struck by the rare feeling of contentment. A single thought crossed Dean’s mind, and he knew, with absolute certainty, that it was true:

He loved him.

And for a moment, he thought maybe he was brave enough to say it.

But he didn’t. Not this time, not today. One day, maybe.

Instead, he was content to just watch Cas play at being human.

The angel finally sipped the coffee, then wrinkled his nose and frowned. He set the mug down and slid it toward Dean.

“Try these,” Dean said, sliding the last few bites of his pancakes over in return.

Cas took a careful bite, contemplating the texture and flavor of it in his mouth. After a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity, he shook his head slowly. “It just tastes like molecules,” he said, a note of disappointment in his voice. He returned the plate to Dean, and sat back in the booth, giving up on this particular human endeavor.

“Do you miss it?” Dean asked, surprising himself with the question. “Being human.”

Cas looked thoughtful. “Sometimes. There are many advantages.”

“Lots of disadvantages too,” Dean pointed out. Mortality, for one. Bowel movements.

“Yes. Though I sometimes think the balance between them is more preferable. But I was not very good at being human.” Cas sat on that thought for a moment. “Though, I suppose, I’m not very good at being an angel either.”

“You make one hell of a Winchester though.”

Cas smiled fondly.

Dean’s phone chimed, drawing his attention away from the Angel. “Looks like Sam found something. Let’s go.” He dropped a handful of bills on the table as they got up to leave.

“Did you know,” Cas said, as they got into the car. “Penguins have a gland that filters sodium out of the water they drink?”

“Oh?” Dean asked.

“They sneeze out the excess salt. It seems like that would be incredibly uncomfortable.”

Dean looked at him with a mixture of confusion and curiosity. Not curiosity about penguins, he honestly didn’t care all that much about penguin anatomy, but about _Cas_. Cas, who had been around for countless millennia, seen the best and worst of the world, and somehow was still awed by it.

Sam had asked him if he ever considered settling down or whatever, maybe with a hunter or someone who understood the life. He hadn’t exactly been lying when he said he couldn’t see that life for them.

But he did, in some ways, want it.

He already had everything he needed.

But moments like this did make him want for something… more.

Amara, _The Darkness_ , whatever the hell she was—

He was drawn to her. There was no other way to explain it. A literal, physical, magnetic attraction.

And no matter how he tried to spin it in his head, it sounded romantic. It sounded like he was a willing participant—which was distinctly not the case.

The Mark may have been removed from his arm, and the homicidal tendencies that came with it were really and truly gone…

But it was still affecting him. It still connected him to her in a way that twisted his stomach into knots.

And that was the real reason the banshee went after him, wasn’t it? Not out of self-defense or whatever bullshit line he tried to give. No, it was all about Dean. Maybe he wasn’t exactly _vulnerable_ , but he was in a state of conflict.

Because on the one hand, there was Amara, who he was insanely, inexplicably connected to, _attracted_ to.

But there was also Cas, who he was actually emotionally invested in.

And it was starting to seem like his very real feelings for Cas were starting to be overshadowed by his fabricated _what-the-fuck-ever_ for Amara.

Still, when they came up against the Qareen, he half expected it to take on the form of Castiel.

Instead it appeared as Amara.

It might’ve made sense if it didn’t scare him so goddamn much.

Because while Cas may have been his _deepest_ desire, there was nothing dark about it. But Amara… Amara was the goddamn Darkness, wasn’t she? Didn’t get darker than that.

“Just how bad is it?” Sam asked, when the truth was finally out there.

“Standing here, right now? Every bone in my body wants to run her through, send he back to that hole she crawled out of. But when I’m near her… I don’t know. Something happens.” When he was near her, he lost control. Not just of his actions, but his _thoughts_. “I can’t explain it. But to call it desire or _love_? It’s not that.” He knew it wasn’t that.

He was screwed, though.

For now, he could only feel her influence when she was nearby.

But how long was it before that grew stronger; how long before there was nothing left of him?

Cas had said yes to Lucifer.

Cas had freed him from the cage.

Lucifer had been walking around in Castiel’s body for _weeks_. And they hadn’t even noticed.

That wasn’t quite true though, was it? Dean _had_ noticed that something was off, that Cas wasn’t quite acting like himself. But, like an idiot, he’d shrugged off the strangeness, and bared his feeling and concerns out to mother fucking _Lucifer_.

Dean was burnt out. He was exhausted from all of it. Trying to find another Hand of God, Lucifer, Amara. Replaying every moment with Cas-ifer in his mind. Searching for some reason…

Sam said Cas chose this. That he had taken control of his vessel just long enough to stop Lucifer from killing him, but told him, in the vaguest of terms, that he had chosen this.

Dean still couldn’t quite believe it. Couldn’t believe that Cas, the angel who had rebelled against the whole of Heaven to stop Lucifer last time, would set him free now.

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t just jump ship,” Sam said, sipping his coffee. “He’s an angel, couldn’t he just grab a different vessel?”

Dean shook his head. “I mean, yeah, he probably could. But he won’t.” He sighed, massaging his temples. “After what happened with Claire… he swore he wouldn’t. Didn’t want to ruin someone else’s life like he had Jimmy’s.” That seemed to be a particularly cruel irony, given recent events. Lucifer was sure to ruin far more if he was allowed to continue on this path.

The vessel, for all intent and purposes, _was_ Cas. Jimmy was long gone, and it had been just Cas for years now. Lucifer’s vessel was Cas’ body.

And Dean still couldn’t fathom how Cas could have let it happen.

“Cas,” he said softly, stepping closer.

“What’re you doing? What’s… what’s going on?”

“Cas, listen to me. We don’t have a whole lot of time.”

Even less time than they’d thought. Lucifer was back in control long before he could say whatever Cas needed to hear to force him out.

Though he was inextricably drawn to Amara, when she was there, threatening Lucifer, the traitorous instinct to protect her was dwarfed by the need to save Cas. It was the first time he was near her that he wasn’t afraid of what she was doing to him. Because his feelings for Cas were so much stronger and more real than anything he felt for her.

He called out to him, hoping that…

Hoping that maybe he had seen what Lucifer had failed to do. That the devil couldn’t stop her, and that there was no sense in letting him stay.

But it wasn’t enough.

Amara spared Sam and Dean and Rowena, but swept Lucifer, and by extension Cas, away to…

Dean tried not to think about what she was going to do to him.

“We’ll find Cas,” Sam tried to reassure him. “He’s stronger than he looks.”

“We gambled with Cas, and now Amara has him.”

“Yeah, for a reason, which means he’s still alive.”

Dean wished he could have that kind of faith. “I’ve been with Amara,” he said. “Her beef is with the big guys, with God, with Lucifer. The small fries, even an angel like Cas, doesn’t even register.” Dean was pissed. He hadn’t slept in a week, hadn’t found anything that might help them, and with every passing day, he was less certain there even was anything left to find. “If it meant hurting Lucifer, killing Cas would mean nothing to her.”

And if she had any inkling of what he meant to Dean, which he had to assume she did, killing him would only be that much more alluring.

Meeting Jesse and Cesar hit Dean in a way that he really hadn’t been expecting from a run-of-the-mill hunt in Small Town, Nowhere.

Of course, it was far from a run-of-the-mill case, it was actually really fucking weird, but given the nature of their lives, if it wasn’t the root cause of the current running apocalypse, it fit the bill of ‘monster of the week’.

But that wasn’t what got to him.

They were a hunter-couple who had managed to make things work. They were married, hunted together for years, and now…

At the end, managed to commit to settling down.

And it gave him a taste of something that looked almost like hope, for something he hadn’t even let himself consider before. That maybe there was a fraction of a chance that they could have… something.

Deep down, though, he knew better. It wouldn’t work. Not for them, and certainly not now. Guys like them didn’t get happy endings.

But he wanted it.

He wanted it so goddamn bad.

Sam was in awe of God, of _Chuck_ —wanting to ask him all sorts of questions and what the fuck ever. Dean had known for years that Sam prayed to him, and still did after all the biblical shit the universe had thrown at them. He never would’ve described his brother as a religious man, but seeing him now that God had revealed himself to them… It was unexpected.

And Dean?

Dean didn’t give a shit.

Because while Sam saw the Creator, the mythical father of all, Dean saw only the dead-beat dad. An asshole who abandoned not only his children, but _all of creation_ because he, what, didn’t want to be a helicopter parent? Bullshit.

“I know you had a complicated upbringing, but don’t confuse me with your dad,” Chuck had said, but how the hell else was he supposed to see things? He knew they weren’t the same, not really, and yet, he couldn’t help but feel like a kid again, scared and lonely and not understanding why Dad was always leaving them. Always leaving him to take care of Sam.

Only, instead of taking care of Sam, they were left to take care of the whole goddamn world.

So no, Dean didn’t give a shit if _God_ was sitting in their reading room. It wasn’t about religion—religion was about faith, and they were dealing in truth. To say he didn’t believe in God would be like saying he didn’t believe in the sun, or gravity, or Clint Eastwood. But he didn’t have _faith_ in God. Not after everything they’d been through. Not after everything God had failed to do.

Not when the once favored son was parading around inside of the vessel of the only angel who actually seemed to care about God’s creation. Did God even care about that?

It was a mess. God, wandering around the bunker in his boxers, cooking breakfast and taking too-long showers, while Lucifer threw a teenage temper tantrum in Cas’ body. The whole thing felt like a cosmic joke at the Winchesters’ expense. Sam and Dean were caught between them, playing family counselor to the only family more dysfunctional than their own.

In the end, somehow they all settle their differences, and gather up enough power to maybe, just _maybe_ take on Amara.

But their long-shot, snowball’s-chance-in-hell plan was just that. They still got their asses handed to them.

Sam and Dean pulled themselves up, somehow, mercifully, still alive despite everything. Dean limped to Lucifer, masking his concern for the vessel behind tired frustration. But the voice that said his name, so distinct and filled with reverence, that Dean knew immediately that it could only be “Cas?” he said, the mask falling away. “Hey, is that you?”

Cas nodded. “Lucifer is gone. Amara ripped him from my body.”

Dean helped him to his feet, his hand resting on the angel’s back as they hobbled toward the dying god.

They had lost. They were really and truly _fucked_. God was dying, the _sun_ was dying.

It hadn’t been a mercy that Amara had spared them. Quite the opposite. She had already signed their deaths, now all there was to do was wait.

“Really?” Sam asked, he and Cas walking into the kitchen after him, just in time to see him down half a beer.

“Yeah, really.” What the hell else was there? They’d done all they could and more. And it still wasn’t enough.

“So what, it’s last call?”

“That’s right.” He took another swig. “Look man, if you’ve got something for me to punch, shoot, or kill, let me know and I’ll do it. I’ll do it ‘til I die. But how are we supposed to fix the fucking sun?” He took yet another swig as Sam and Cas shared a look – neither having any real argument for him. “You know what, this isn’t gonna be enough. I better make a run,” Dean said, grinning manically. Most of the good stuff was gone, and there beer wasn’t likely to get him anywhere near drunk enough to handle the _end of the fucking world_. “No reason to die sober. You wanna?”

“No,” Sam said firmly, disbelief ringing strongly in his voice. “I’ll stay here, find out Plan B.” Dean might’ve wished he could borrow just an ounce of that surefire determination.

“Okay. Cas,” he said, waving the angel to join him on the booze run. A comfortable silence fell between them as the climbed into the car and headed into town. It may have been the end of the world, but he was glad to at least have his best friend back at his side, for however long they had left.

And, well… he was more than that, wasn’t he?

“How you doing? You good?” Dean asked, splitting his attention between the road and the angel. Cas shrugged, seeming more lost than Dean could ever remember seeing him. “I mean, you know, the whole Lucifer thing.”

“I was just… so stupid,” Cas said, chastising himself.

“It wasn’t stupid,” Dean said. “You were right. You were right to let Lucifer ride shotgun. Me and Sam wouldn’t have done that.” Still, he wished he hadn’t. He wished that hadn’t been their only chance. Failed chance.

“Well, it didn’t work.”

“No, but it was our best shot. And you stepped up.” Dean shook his head. “But don’t do that again.”

“I was just trying to help.”

There was something in his voice, in the way he said it. As though he wasn’t worthy if he didn’t have something to offer. “And you do help, Cas. You know, sometimes, me and Sam have so much going on that we forget about everyone else.”

“You do live exciting lives,” Cas said with a chuckle.

Dean smiled. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.” He fell serious once more. “But you’re always there, you know? You’re the best friend we’ve ever had.” He could’ve laid it all out then and there; it was the end of the world, after all. But, like a dumbass, instead he said “You’re our brother, Cas, I want you to know that.”

“Thank you,” Cas said after a moment, though it was clear to Dean that there was some uncertainty in it. And he had every intention to quell that uncertainty, but that was when Sam called in, with one final, crazy plan that just might save them all.

They don’t often get goodbyes—not like this. Usually it’s all chaos and disaster and one of them almost dies without really getting to say goodbye.

It sucked, but in this particular moment, he thought he might’ve preferred that.

Long goodbyes sucked more. Knowing he wasn’t going to come out the other side of this, and worse, Sam knowing he wasn’t coming back.

“Dean,” Cas said, pulling his attention away from Chuck.

“Cas—okay,” he said, chuckling mirthlessly as Cas pulled him into a hug. Dean clung to him.

Goodbyes sucked. And, well, it was his last chance to say it, so. “I love you,” he whispered into Cas’ shoulder. Cas’ arms tightened around him, but he said nothing in return. In a way, Dean was grateful for that. He had thought, or maybe hoped, that Cas felt the same, or at least as close to it as an angel was capable of; but if he voiced it now, it would have made all of this so much harder.

“I could go with you,” Cas said instead.

Dean shook his head. “No. I gotta do this alone. Listen, if—when this works, Sam is gonna be a mess. Look out for him, okay? Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.” He hoped they would look out for each other, that somehow, they would both make it through okay.

“Of course.”

“Thank you, for everything.” Somehow, the words don’t feel like enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if this chapter is a bit of a mess. It feels more disjointed than it has any need to be, but I'll blame that on the fact that I don't feel like I had a lot of *add* to this chapter of the Winchester's lives.
> 
> The next few chapters are not only already written, but some of my favorites of this fic so far. I can't wait to get them to you!


	10. Like an All-Day Dream

But then, once again, he didn’t die.

Whether it was because he was a Winchester, and Winchesters didn’t go down that easily, or because he was _Dean_ , who had so much value in family that he somehow convinced the OG siblings, the creators of the universe, to get their shit together after eons of feuding… Whatever the reason, he had survived. Yet again.

Chuck was healed, he and Amara had vanished off into the cosmos, leaving Dean with a cryptic message about giving him what he needed most, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

The moment they were gone, he dug his hands into his pockets, fishing for his phone. Call Sammy. Tell him he was alive. It was okay. He made it. Crisis averted, and no sacrifice necessary.

He had no signal.

“Cas,” he said aloud, his eyes closed in prayer. “I’m okay. I made it.” He had no idea where he was. He looked around as he wandered out of the garden, trying to get some bearing on his location. He probably should’ve asked Chuck before they left… then again, maybe not.

He checked his phone again. Nada.

And then the unbelievable happened. What he needed most…

“Mom?”

If he hadn’t just left on the good side of _God_ and his _sister_ , he might’ve been more suspicious, more disbelieving. Instead, he was just… in awe.

“Are you… really real?”

He shouldn’t have been surprised that the next thing was his face in her dirt, her foot pressed to his back. Of course, she wouldn’t recognize him, how could she?

“I’m Dean,” he said. “Winchester. I’m your son.”

“No,” she said. “My Dean is four years old.”

And _oh_ , that was actually a surprise. She didn’t know she was… “I was when you died.”

The words seemed to spark something in her, enough that Dean was able to regain his footing. “Mom,” he said, reaching toward her again, but careful to maintain the distance between them. He rattled off a few facts, things about her life that he knew, either ingrained in him from dad, or things he had learned about her in the brief meetings in the past. Whatever it took to prove that he was who he said. “A few years later, I came along. Then Sammy.”

“And then I burned,” she said in disbelief. “How long have I been gone?”

“33 years.”

When she finally stepped forward, finally hugged him, every fiber of his being wanted cling to her and never let go. But he held back, hugging her carefully, as if she might break. Or disappear.

And then they just talked. He wanted to tell her everything, _everything_ , but he also knew there was a lot of shit in there, and now wasn’t the time for that. So he gave her the cliff’s notes—growing up a hunter after she died, and learning later _from her_ how much she would’ve hated that; searching for the things that killed her, Dad going missing, and then eventually reuniting with him only to have him die too.

At the time, their lives had seemed so complicated, but looking back on it, it almost felt like it might’ve been the simplest part.

She didn’t remember meeting him in the past, which was expected, and she also didn’t remember being the ghost that protected their old house, which was maybe for the better.

“And God’s sister brought me back to life?” she asked.

“Pretty much.” Dean could see how that might’ve sounded crazy; hell, he’d lived it and it sounded a little crazy. “It’s a lot, I know it’s a lot,” he said. “And I’ll explain everything, but right now, let’s get out of here. Let’s get you home.” It wouldn’t be any home she remembered, but it was his home, and Sammy and Cas would be there. Sam needed to be part of this reunion.

He counted himself lucky that they weren’t too far from home—it was a few hours’ drive, but considering his recent encounter with actual gods, he could’ve been halfway around the globe, so a couple hours was doable.

“Sam’s gonna be so glad to see you,” Dean said. “And Cas’ll love to meet you, too, I’m sure.” He didn’t elaborate on that. Mostly they rode in silence, Mary staring out the window of the junker he’d boosted from the middle of nowhereville as he drove them home. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know where to begin. It felt wrong to tell her too much without Sam being there.

When they finally reached Lebanon, he relaxed a little. He hadn’t left home all that long ago, but when he did, he’d been certain he would never see it again. And yet here he was, alive and well and with his _mom_ next to him.

“You wanna stop and grab some clothes?” he offered.

She seemed thrown by the question, but looked down at the gown she was wearing, the gown she had _died_ in, and nodded.

He chuckled when he saw the clothes she’d picked out, very hunter chic, and though it didn’t fit the mental image he always had of her, somehow it did fit her.

“You live here?” she asked when they entered the bunker. There was something in her tone, confusion, surprise, disbelief, he wasn’t sure. He supposed it wasn’t exactly the standard definition of home.

“Yeah, when we’re not on the road. It’s an old Men of Letters bunker.” Hmm. He wondered if that even meant anything to her.

“Men of Letters? They’re a myth, and old hunters’ story.”

Well, that answered that question. “Yeah, not so much.” He slowed as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Something was off.

He wasn’t exactly expecting a party. He hadn’t been able to get ahold of either Sam or Cas since his would-be demise, but he still half thought he might find them in the war room, drunkenly lamenting his death, or something. But instead the room was eerily still.

Blood.

He removed the gun from his waistband, moving slowly and carefully through the room. “Sammy?” he called out. “Cas?” He spotted the angel-banishing sigil on the stonework, which meant one of two things. Either rogue angels had come for them, or something else had laid an ambush.

Given the state of things, it was starting to look like the latter.

He went for the hidden revolver, handing it to Mary. “Here, take this,” he said. “Stay here.” He needed to check the rest of the bunker to be sure of anything.

Sure enough, the rest of the bunker was, well and completely, empty.

It only took him a few minutes to circle back, yet somehow when he did, Mary’s gun was drawn on Cas, who looked more irritated than actually threatened by the weapon pointed at him. And rightfully so, Cas was far more threat to Mary than her gun was to him. Dean knew this of course, but the fact didn’t catch up to him until he was halfway to them, his hands raised to stop his mother from shooting.

“Woah, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he said, pushing the gun down. “He’s a friend.” He turned to the angel. “Hey, Cas.”

“Dean,” he said, surprise and relief ringing in his voice. He was expecting a hug, but he wasn’t expecting Cas to latch on quite so aggressively. Dean smiled and hugged him back, content to stay there as long as he needed.

Cas let go quickly though, pushing him away to study his features. “You’re alive?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the bomb and the Darkness? What happened?”

Dean had only been gone a few hours, and still there was so much to catch up on. “I’ll tell you everything, but where is Sam?”

“He’s not here.”

“Are you a hunter?” Mary asked, reminding Dean that they weren’t alone.

“No, I’m an angel,” Cas said, answering at the same time as Dean.

“Come again?”

“An angel,” Dean repeated. “Capital A, wings, harp.”

“No, I don’t have a harp,” Cas felt the need to correct.

“This is Castiel,” Dean said. “Cas, this is… Mary. Winchester.” This wasn’t exactly how he had pictured their introduction, though if someone had asked, he wasn’t sure what he had in mind.

Confusion turned to understanding, and then confusion again, in Cas’ eyes. “Your mother.”

“Yeah. But where is Sam? He’s not answering his phone, there’s blood on the floor, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Cas said, describing what had happened when they’d come home earlier in the night.

“When did this go down?” Dean asked, pulling Sam’s laptop over.

“Is that… a computer?” Mary asked, and _oh boy_. He was not the right Winchester to be trying to explain all the technological advancements made in the last 30-odd years.

“Yes,” Cas answered. “I don’t trust them.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“How did you do that?” Mary asked, when he found the getaway car in the traffic cam footage. He may not have been as smart as Sam about this stuff, but he did know his way around fairly well.

“Welcome to the future,” he answered unhelpfully. “Come on, let’s go.” And then he smiled, remembering his Baby parked in the garage. Yet another thing he thought he’d never see again.

He didn’t expect Mary’s reaction to seeing the car. His car. Formerly John’s car. Okay, he probably should’ve known she would remember the car. “She’s still beautiful,” she said in awe.

“Hell yeah, she is,” Dean said, his heart filling with pride. He’d built her from the ground up more times than he’d bothered to count, every inch of her meticulously cared for by his own hands.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Mary greeted, looking over the car. “Remember me?” She seemed to get lost in fond memories of that car, and for a moment, Dean did too. He and Sammy had grown up here; the bunker might’ve been their home now, but the car was their home _always_.

Dean’s face fell as other memories floated by—he’d had sex with Cas in the backseat of this car, and with others too, and he knew Sammy had slept with a few girls back there. And here Mary was, reminiscing over good, clean memories. Awkward.

He looked up at her, reading her expressions, and an even worse realization hit him.

“Oh.” Oh no. Cas caught his gaze, looking as confused as ever, and he wished he could tell him without actually telling him, that every Winchester had, at some point or another, had sex in this car. Hell, he (or Sam) might’ve been conceived in this car, and that—

That was just not something he wanted to think about. “We should go.”

The silence in the car wasn’t awkward, per se, but it was unusual. Sam was missing, Mary was newly resurrected, Cas was… well, Cas was his normal level of quiet, but Dean felt some tension in it. The whole situation was bizarre, and Dean wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Wanna pop some tunes?” Dean asked, tapping the glove compartment. Mary opened it and sifted through the cassettes carefully, before sliding one into the tape deck. _Black Dog_ started to play.

“I like this,” Cas said a few moments later. Dean smiled, feeling something he couldn’t quite put a name to.

“Of course you do, it’s Zeppelin,” Dean said. They didn’t always agree on music, but at least they agreed on this one.

They tracked the plates to a rental company a few towns over.

“Jaime Ross?” Cas asked, entering the garage ahead of them. It was odd, having him take lead on a case, but he seemed determined, and Dean was content to let him. He’d come a long way over the past few years, and these days could almost pass for human.

Almost.

“Cas,” Dean said, enough warning in his tone to get him to back down from breaking the guy’s nose.

“That’s an angel?” Mary asked. Dean shrugged as if to say, ‘you get used to it’. They would have to talk later, about how most angels were not to be trusted. They would have to talk about a lot of things.

“Hey, Jody,” Dean said, watching Mary and Cas walk toward the coffee stand. “Yeah, I’m alive… I found another way. Listen, I need a favor.”

He didn’t tell her all he should have—namely, he didn’t tell her that his mother was alive. He had no idea how he was supposed to go about starting _that_ conversation, not with her, and they were sort of short on time as it was.

She tracked down the plane the driver had given them, but the information turned out to be a bust.

“ _Sorry I couldn’t be more help_.”

“Nah, it’s not your fault. Thanks for trying.”

“ _It’s good to hear your voice_ ,” she said.

He smiled. “You too.”

He hung up and went to rejoin Cas and Mary, breaking the news to them.

“Who are these people?”

“Dean,” Cas said, sitting up straighter in his seat. Dean followed his line of sight. A vet’s office.

“Good catch,” he said, rising from his own chair. “Let’s go.”

“Cas,” Dean said, reaching out to stop him for the second time that day. “Don’t hurt him. Not yet.”

The threat Cas posed was enough to have the doctor spilling information.

“And that’s all you know?” Mary asked. The doctor’s lie was almost humorous in its transparency. “Hurt him,” Mary instructed. Dean realized, in that moment, that while he may have been the butch, gun-toting, born-and-bred hunter, he was far from the biggest threat among them. Compared to his mother and his angel, he was practically a pacifist.

For all their efforts, they had little to show for it. Dean and Cas had their asses handed to them by a raging Brit, and Mary had human blood on her hands from saving their lives, but all of it amounted to a maybe-lead in the middle of nowhere Missouri.

“I never wanted this for you and Sam,” Mary said.

And Dean understood, really, he did. There had been times were he didn’t want it either, not for himself or for Sam. “If I had kids, I wouldn’t want them in this.” He thought about Kevin, who never should’ve been in it in the first place, and Claire, who despite his efforts, kept fighting her way back to it. “But Sam and me? Saving people and hunting things, this is our life. I think that we make the world a better place. I _know_ that we do.”

Dean had been bloody and bruised from the encounter with the Brit Bitch, and though Cas had healed the wounds, he could still feel the ghost of them under his skin. Cas looked defeated, Mary looked tired, and the moment the thought crossed his mind, he realized how tired he was himself. He hadn’t slept since before the latest almost-apocalypse. So, while the phone told them Sam might be in Missouri, Dean drove toward home.

“Hey,” Dean said quietly, reaching toward Cas. He’d figured it out now, the unusual tension and anger radiating off of the angel. Cas tentatively laced their fingers together, but didn’t quite make eye contact. “It’s not your fault,” Dean said, squeezing his hand gently.

Dean got Mary set up in one of the bunker’s many rooms, leaving her with a bathrobe, some of his lesser used pajamas, and directions to the shower, before wandering back into the main library. He found Cas there, hunched over the laptop, deep in focus. Dean watched as a range of emotions passed through him, somewhat muted by this angelic nature, but, to Dean at least, they were still clear as day. Mostly, Cas was irritated, and it was only a few moments before he slammed the laptop closed with a groan.

“Hey,” Dean said, announcing himself.

“It is my fault,” Cas said. “I was supposed to look out for him. It was, literally, your dying wish. And I failed.”

“Hey,” he said again, reaching out to put a hand on Cas’ shoulder. He squeezed tightly, grounding him. “First of all, I’m alive. I’m right here. And second, you didn’t fail anything, you were ambushed. It happens to the best of us. Now, if they were going to kill Sam, they would’ve done it here. Which means we have time to rest and regroup.”

“I don’t need rest,” Cas said. He was still tense, but some of the frustration had drained from his voice. “I need to find Sam.”

“And we will. In the morning.”

“I should go ahead to Missouri now.”

“Cas—”

“I can’t just sit here feeling useless while you sleep,” he said. “But I can get a head start on the investigation. See if it’s even worth you making the drive.”

And, yeah, okay, maybe that wasn’t the most terrible idea. Dean didn’t _like_ it, but he couldn’t disagree with it either. “Okay,” he said. “Just, be careful, don’t do anything stupid. And call me if you find _anything_.” Cas nodded.

It was well past midnight, hours since they’d returned home and Dean, well, Dean still hadn’t slept. Mary had showered, and had since been wandering around the bunker, looking through things, perusing books, and trying to figure out various pieces of technology.

“ _Have you slept_ ,” Cas said, answering his call.

“Not exactly,” Dean said. He had tried, briefly, but the attempt was futile. He couldn’t sleep with all the worry about Sam. And knowing that Sam was out there, being held captive, and thinking Dean was dead. So instead, he sat down to continue researching what he could. He hadn’t found anything useful, and if the radio silence from Cas’ end was anything to go by, there may not have even been a reason to follow him out there.

“ _Dean_.”

“I’m fine,” Dean lied. “I haven’t found anything on these surveillance cameras, it’s like they just disappeared. How ‘bout you? Any of the local beat cops see anyone who isn’t supposed to be there?”

He felt his eyes drift closed as Cas talked, and Dean found himself wondering if he could get the angel to just talk into the phone for a while, until he fell asleep. “You know,” he said instead. “Check real estate offices. See if anybody bought a place or rented one. These people had a freaking plane, maybe they do things legit.”

“ _Alright_ ,” Cas said. “ _Get some sleep. I’ll call in the morning_.”

“Cas, wait,” Dean said, stopping him before he could hang up. It had only been a few hours, but everything with Mom felt _weird._ He doesn’t know what to say to her, how to act around her. “We just kinda make small talk and act normal, but… it’s so not normal.”

Cas made a series of uncertain noises. “ _What has she said to you?_ ”

“Well, nothing. That’s the point.”

“ _What have you said to her?_ ”

“Nothing. I’m—I don’t know what to say to her, you know? It’s like it’s all too much.” Their whole lives were a disaster, none of it was _easy_ , and trying to explain that to the woman who wanted anything but this for them… and on top of Sam being kidnapped. “I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“ _Don’t make things needlessly complicated, as you humans tend to do_ ,” Cas said curtly. “ _I’ll call you_.” The call ended.

“Yeah, great,” he said to himself. It was actually good advice, but Dean didn’t know what to do with it. The fact of the matter was, the whole situation _was_ complicated, there was no getting around that.

“Any news on Sam?” Mary asked, entering the room looking surprisingly cozy and upbeat in her Men of Letters robe.

“Here,” he said, pulling a second chair closer to the laptop. “Somewhere outside Aldrich, Missouri. Cas’ going through it with a fine-toothed comb, and I’ve cracked every database I could.”

“Every what?” she asked.

Right. This was going to get difficult. He easily took for granted all the things they used on a daily basis, and she knew nothing about most of it. Computers, cell phones, internet. That was, at least, an easier place to start than with the personal stuff.

“So… are you really afraid of overwhelming me?

Shit. “Mom, look, I am thrilled that you’re back. I mean it, I am so damn happy I can’t even stand it.” Amara had been right, she had known then what he hadn’t let himself wish for—that what he wanted, what he _needed_ , more than anything, was his mom.

“It’s just gonna take me a second to catch up,” she said.

Of _course,_ it would. “Yeah, take all the time you need,” he said.

With that out in the open, the noise in his head calmed some, and when his head hit the pillow a little later in the night, sleep would eventually come.

“I had dreams all night,” Mary said.

“Good dreams?”

“Stuff I’d forgotten about,” she said, smiling as she thought about it. “Funny stuff your dad did. He was a great father.”

And that hit different. It wasn’t a punch to the gut, or any visceral feeling, but it did pain him. Ten years removed from John’s death, he had _mostly_ rid himself of the gut instinct to defend the man’s worst behaviors, and he was even beginning to come to terms with the fact that… that what he had done to them was something no kid should’ve ever been forced through.

But here was his mom, remembering the man she loved, the man she made a deal to save, and she didn’t know any of it. She knew they were raised like hunters, sure, but she didn’t know the half of what he had put them through.

And he had no idea how to tell her.

“So, Castiel,” Mary said. They’re halfway to Missouri, hopefully halfway to Sammy. He had serious misgivings about bringing her along, but, well, she had a streak of stubbornness that might’ve put the rest of the Winchesters to shame.

“Yeah?”

“How long have you been together?” she asked, and he immediately regretted opening whatever door had led to _this_ conversation.

“We’re not… it’s not like that.”

She studied him for a moment. “Sorry, I misunderstood.”

“It’s fine.” A few moments passed, and while he could’ve just left it at that, he didn’t. He took a deep breath, and then sighed. “It’s just complicated,” he said.

“Because he’s a man?” she asked. “Is that still… people still get hung up on that?”

Something in him relaxed a little. “Kinda?” he said. “Not really though, not like it used to be. It doesn’t bother you?” he asked. She had grown up in Kansas, in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It wasn’t exactly the most open-minded time period.

She shrugged. “It always seemed liked such an inconsequential thing to get worked up over. Why interfere with someone else’s happiness if it didn’t interfere with your own.”

“There’s some hate groups I’d love to introduce you to,” Dean said, smiling. She could kick their asses six ways to Sunday, and still have time to publicly shame them for their intolerance.

“Then again, there was always the religious aspect, which we didn’t much subscribe to in the Campbell household, but it turns out that’s all… real?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure God is bi, so I ain’t changin’ my ways on those grounds.” Did he just come out to his mom? And before he came out to Sammy, no less?

“So, if the issue isn’t that he’s a man,” she said, getting back to the original question as though Dean wasn’t in the driver’s seat having a slight existential crisis. “Then because he’s an angel?”

“No?” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, angels are dicks. But Cas is family. He chose our side when things got bad, and he stayed with us even when it looked like we were done for.” He skipped over the parts where Cas had gone dark side; maybe they’d talk about that eventually, but it wasn’t important in that moment. After all, they’d all gone bad at some point or another. “Is this really what you want to talk about right now?” he asked.

“I have missed 33 years of birthdays, girlfriends, boyfriends, proms, and everything else a mother looks forward to in her child’s life. Yes, I would like to talk about this now.”

“Fair enough,” Dean said. But where was he even supposed to begin. “Our lives are complicated,” he said. “No sense trying to hide that from you. Things with Cas… it’s more of the same. There’s something there, but, I haven’t really thought about what it means, let alone if he even feels the same.” He couldn’t believe he was saying all of this out loud. “So: complicated.”

“But you’ve known each other a long time,” she said. It was no doubt obvious from their interactions.

He nodded and did the math in his head. “Eight years or so. He saved me from Hell.”

“Hell,” she repeated. “That’s a euphemism for…?”

“Not a euphemism, unfortunately,” he said. Seeing the look of confused concern on her face, he added “You’re not the only Winchester to make a deal to save someone they care about. You were just the first.” It did nothing to assuage her fears. “Sammy died. I traded myself. Pretty much flipped the playbook after that.”

“But you got out,” she said, taking some solace in that fact.

“Yeah, I got out. And that is all the Hell-talk you will get out of me.” He was dead serious on that. He didn’t want to think about Hell, let along talk about it, and certainly not with his mom. He still had nightmares about it, more often than he would like, though maybe not as frequent as he deserved. He shook his head. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

Bringing Mom along felt like a bad idea. Dean knew she could hold her own in a fight; he’d learned that that hard way more than once. But it was still his instinct to protect her—if anything happened to her, after they’d just got her back, he’d never get over it. Bringing her into the shack to potentially rescue Sam wasn’t an option.

“You can keep me from driving, Dean, not from hunting,” she said.

How the hell was he supposed to argue with that? He _couldn’t_ stop her, but he couldn’t let her go in either. He looked to Cas, begging him for backup on this.

Cas was equally at a loss. “I’m locked out by the warding,” he said, coming up beside her. “I could use the company.” It was a shitty excuse, but it would have to do. Then again, leaving Cas and Mom out here together, after his recent admission… He hoped that didn’t come back to bite him.

She had been right, though. The Brit of Letters knew all about Sam, and Dean, and Cas, but hadn’t anticipated _their dead mother_ as backup.

“Mom?” Sammy asked in shock, still reeling from the sight of Dean being alive.

When all was said and done, the Winchesters were left standing, varying degrees of beaten and bloodied, as Mick Davies walked the rogue Woman of Letters out of the old house. When the door fell closed behind them, Sam turned to his brother and threw his arms around his shoulders, hugging him tight. Dean brought his hands up, holding on for as long as Sammy needed.

“How are you alive?” he asked. He looked over Dean’s shoulder at their mom as he released the hug. “How are _you_ alive?”

Dean chuckled. “I’ll tell you all about it, but, dude, you look like shit.” He turned to Cas, nodding his head in Sam’s direction.

“Torture will do that,” Sam said lightheartedly as Cas began to heal his wounds. Within a few minutes, they were all healed of their major injuries.

“Alright Winchesters,” Dean said, clapping his hands together and grinning. “Let’s go home.”

He was ecstatic to have her back. Over the moon with joy.

But he would’ve been lying if he said it wasn’t the least bit weird.

He was still trying to reconcile the memories he had of her, with the woman she was.

It wasn’t a _disappointment_ , not by any means. Just an adjustment. His memories of her were sporadic, disjointed flashes from when he was a child mixed with drunken stories Dad had told. None of it held a candle to the reality of her being here with them.

Dean sipped his beer as he flipped through the handful of photos he’d collected over the years, tumbling down memory lane. He missed Bobby. He missed Dad—both the version of him he knew, and more so the version Mary remembered him to be.

Somewhere else in the bunker, he knew Sam was giving John’s journal to her, to help her through her transition. It would be good for her, to have a piece of him to learn from, but it also told the story of their early lives, including a lot of the less-than-glamorous parts of their upbringing that Dean had wanted to protect her from.

“What are you doing down here?” Cas asked, sliding down the cabinet to sit next to him.

Dean shrugged. “Just thinking,” he said. He lowered the pictures and looked at Cas. “This whole thing is… surreal.”

Cas nodded. “I’m not sure I can even imagine what you’re feeling right now. You are… happy, though, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Of course, yes. I never thought I’d have this chance, you know. It’s just. Not what I expected.” He looked back down at the pictures in his hands, flipping through them one by one.

“I like this one,” Cas said, stopping him. It was several years old, though still one of the most current—most of the more recent photos were digital, he’d made a mental note to get some printed later. It was from the early days of Apocalypse 1.0; Sam, Dean, Cas, Bobby, Jo, and Ellen were huddled together in what, to anyone else, might’ve looked like a normal family photo. This was the first take, where they were all laughing at something Ellen had said, and even Cas had cracked a rare smile.

“Yeah, that was a good one,” Dean said, a sad smile forming on his lips.

“This one is unfamiliar though,” he said, taking the next photo in his hands, frowning at it. Dean, Cas, Chuck, Bobby, and a few unfamiliar faces.

“Future that didn’t happen,” Dean said. The Dean in the picture wasn’t him, and that Cas wasn’t this one, not a version of either of them that they ever came to be.

“You kept it?”

Dean shrugged. “There was something about it. It wasn’t _my_ memory, but it felt important.”

“Chuck was there?”

“Yeah, that’s really weird to think about, knowing what we know now.”

“What was it like?” Cas asked after a moment. Dean had mentioned it back when it happened, but he hadn’t been heavy on the details.

“Sam was Lucifer, I was an ass, and you were heavily self-medicating,” Dean said, chuckling at the memory. “You were maybe the only part of it I didn’t hate.”

“Because I was… stoned?”

Dean laughed. “That’s putting it lightly,” he said. “And, sure, it was funny, I guess. But no. You were just… the only thing that felt real.”

Cas frowned at him, trying to understand.

“Everyone there was a stranger to me. Even myself. He was…” Dean shook his head, thinking about how that Dean had led his friend to their deaths on the _chance_ of catching Lucifer off-guard. “Nothing I ever wanna be.” He shifted gears, shaking off those thoughts. “But you were still sorta you. Human, coping badly, and not quite the Cas I knew at the time. But still my best friend.”

He turned and smiled at Cas, who smiled back at him. The angel looked down at the photos again. “I think… I think I’d like a copy of these,” he said. Dean looked at the photos again, thinking about the future that never came to be. It was perhaps the only photo in existence of Cas with his father, even if he didn’t remember the moment, and they hadn’t known who he was at the time.

“Yeah, I’ll get some printed for you.”

“Thank you, Dean.” Dean moved closer as Cas continued to look at the old pictures, mostly of Sam and Dean, a few of Bobby and other friends they’d lost over the years. “You were a cute child.”

Dean flushed a little. “I’m cute now,” he defended.

Cas looked at him and smiled. “Yes, you are,” he said, surprising Dean.

Feeling uncommonly brazen, Dean moved forward until their noses were almost touching, and then… and then his confidence faltered. “Can I—Is this okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” Cas answered quickly.

Dean surged forward, closing the remaining distance. His eyes fluttered closed as the angel’s hand came up to his face, cradling his jaw and holding him close.

Time didn’t stand still; there were no fireworks or sparks flying, though Cas could probably have made the lights flicker if he wanted.

No, there was only calm. Dean thought he could live forever in the subtle smell of ozone and the gentle pressure of his lips. He tasted faintly of… blueberries. Had he had some of the pie after dinner? Dean smiled at the thought, and swiped his tongue along Cas’ lower lip, savoring the taste. Though every sensation was new here, it somehow felt familiar, like they had been doing this since always.

Dean shifted, his knee bumping over one of the forgotten bottles, the last dregs of beer spilling out between them.

“Whoops,” he said. He leaned over Cas to grab a towel off the hanger and threw it down to soak up the mess.

“Perhaps you should get some rest,” Cas suggested.

“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea,” Dean said, but leaned in to press another kiss to the angel’s lips.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Dean said, stepping past her to get back to fixing the car. He’d spent the better part of the day working on it, and he’d caught her watching more than a few times. “She’ll be back in fighting shape in no time.”

“You’ve done this before,” she said, a wary look crossing her face.

“Yeah,” he said. It was generally something he was proud of—he knew Baby inside and out, had pieced her back together from worse shape than this more times than he could count—but he realized then, that it was just one more indication of how disastrous their lives had been in her absence.

He spent the next several days working on the car, until she was finally back in pristine condition. Sam had spent the time searching for anything he could on the Brits, and Cas was looking for signs of Lucifer. The three of them took turns teaching Mary how to use a cell phone, amongst other modern conveniences. Cas had done a surprisingly good job of that, despite the fact that he still regularly forgot to charge his phone, and his outgoing message was—well, Dean was actually pretty sure it was a _joke_ , which only served to show that angelic humor left something to be desired. But Cas and Mary were getting along well, in some ways bonding better than she was with Sam and Dean. It was weird, but good, and Dean found himself smiling as he watched the pair of them figure out how to download apps to her new phone over dinner.

He and Cas didn’t talk about the kiss, because, well, they had a long and unhealthy history of not talking about things when they should. It hadn’t changed thing between them, which Dean supposed was not a _bad_ thing, because it very well could’ve exploded in their faces, but he had expected… something.

Sometimes he really wished he was better at this shit.

“Morning sunshine, want some coffee?” Dean asked, pointing to the freshly brewed pot.

“No, thank you. I have to go.”

And with that, he walked away, Sam and Dean calling after him.

He explained that he had found a possible lead on Lucifer. And he was going alone. He always went alone.

“Cas, you’re gonna want some backup on this,” Sam said.

“If it is him, I will call you,” Cas said, looking more perturbed than anything. “In the meantime, I think you’re needed here.

“What the hell was that about?” Dean asked when Cas was gone. It had felt particularly pointed, like they had done something wrong, but Dean couldn’t for the life of him remember what.

Sam clicked his tongue. “Mom.”

Given all their similarities, Dean shouldn’t have been surprised when Mom said she wanted to go on a hunt. Dean’s go-to coping mechanism was hunting (followed closely by copious drinking, but that one he’d picked up from Dad). He guessed he just thought there would’ve been more resistance to the hunter life, what with how clear she’d made her feelings on the matter.

But maybe he’d hoped for a little more family R&R they’d only been on downtime for a few days, he still felt like they had so much catching up to do.

But hey, family hunting trip, featuring Mom. They could do that, right?

And then she left.

Their home wasn’t hers, and, in a way, her sons weren’t them. It was too much for her to take in.

And Dean… Dean _tried_ to understand, he did. After all she’d been through, after all _they’d_ been through, he knew it would take time to adjust. He just thought that would be time together, making up for the time they’d missed.

But instead she left.

Of course she did. Because that was what everyone did. They left. Dad, Bobby, Benny, Charlie. Cas.

Mom.

They all left.

And Dean hurt. It hurt so much he couldn’t even look at her as she left, could hardly look at Sam for the rest of the day.

Why?

Why had Amara given this to him, if it was just going to be taken away?

That night, when he was finally alone in his room, he let go. He broke.

There were times when he might’ve broken everything in the room, tossed anything that wasn’t bolted down. This time though, he just cried, arms wrapped around his pillow.

When his phone rang, he almost ignored it. Let whatever it was be someone else’s problem. But he didn’t. He wiped his eyes, sniffed back his tears, and let out a deep sigh.

“Yeah, Cas?” he answered.

“ _What’s wrong?_ ”

Dean closed his eyes. “Nothing.”

“ _Bullshit_.”

“Why did you call? You got something on Lucifer?” Dean asked.

“ _I heard your prayer._ ”

Dean’s eyes flew open. “What? I didn’t—"

“ _Not on purpose, but you did call out._ ”

“How did I do that?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about accidentally praying to Cas without being aware of it.

“ _Certain circumstances: longing, deep worry, even just wanting to talk. Claire still does it sometimes, though not as often as she used to._ ”

“You can pick up on that?” Dean asked.

“ _Sometimes_.”

“No, I mean, you can pick up on that shit, but you can’t be bothered to answer your damn phone half the time?”

“ _Sometimes, Dean, I’m busy. Right now, I’m not busy. And you seemed unusually distraught. You don’t often pray to me, intentionally or otherwise. Not anymore_.” Dean thought he sounded a little disappointed by that, and he remembered the times when he had prayed to Cas almost daily. Had that provided the same solace to the angel as it had to the hunter? “ _So again, I ask: what’s wrong?_ ”

Dean sighed and shoved his pillow under his head. “Mom left.” When Cas didn’t respond for a long moment, he continued on, telling him what had happened and what she had said. He couldn’t stop the tears when they started again, but he didn’t care. This _sucked_. “Cas? You still there.”

“ _I’m still here_ ,” he confirmed.

“You gonna say anything?”

Cas was quiet a moment longer, and Dean could visualize the contemplative look on his face. “ _Do you want me to offer advice or just moral support?_ ” he asked.

“Uh… moral support, I guess,” Dean said. He wasn’t really sure what he wanted; he hadn’t even known he was calling out to Cas, after all. “Though, do you have advice?” he asked.

“ _Not really. It’s an unusual situation, for all of you._ ”

“You can say that again.”

“ _It’s an unusual situation_ ,” Cas repeated, maintaining his usual even timbre.

“Cas,” Dean said, rolling his eyes, but laughing just the same.

“ _It will be okay, Dean_ ,” he said, a hint of a smile in his voice. “ _She needs time. Perhaps you do too._ ”

“Yeah, I guess. It just feels like… like we aren’t good enough. She came back and we turned out to be everything she never wanted. Like we’re this huge disappointment.”

“ _You’re not a disappointment, Dean. Perhaps your lives did not go the way she would’ve hoped, but you’ve done so much good. You’ve saved people, you’ve saved_ the world _. You’re not a disappointment._ ”

He hadn’t been expecting that, and he didn’t know how to respond. Cas’ words were so filled with confidence and certainty, it was hard _not_ to believe them, even when Dean’s inner voice wanted to argue all of it. “Thanks, Cas.”

“ _I am only telling you the truth._ ”

And maybe it was a little too much truth for Dean to handle at once. “Anything on the Satan search?” he asked, trying to deflect the attention.

Cas sighed. “ _Nothing worth sharing. Are you okay_?”

“Yeah, Cas, I’m okay. I will be. I’ll try to get some sleep.”

“ _Good idea. I’ll call you in the morning.”_

“Sure,” Dean agreed. “Goodnight.”

“ _Goodnight_.”

“I love you,” Dean said, before he could stop himself, but it was too late anyway, the line had already gone dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, a lot happened in this chapter.
> 
> Yet another unintended parallel to Despair happened here - I wrote this chapter months ago, and yet in my final edit just now, I found a bit of an unexpected gut-punch when I reached their conversation at the end. Not quite as intense, not nearly as dire, and yet, still with a similar feeling. "too much truth for Dean to handle at once" was a line I wrote months ago, and yet seems so deeply relevant right now.
> 
> Another bit of meta for you: Dean felt unusually calm and collected during the first few episodes of season 12, not as burdened as we typically see him, especially considering how he usually reacts when Sammy is in danger. Perhaps merely the joy in having his mother returned to him. But I think what I intended - no, what I know I set out to do when I started writing all of this, was to explain it in the admission at the end of last chapter. The freedom he feels is just in saying it, in having it out in the open.
> 
> I swear to you, I did not do any of this on purpose. I could not have planned this.


	11. A Little Twisted In The Saddle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry ya'll, I was so caught up in the euphoria/tragedy of Despair, and writing increasingly desperate tags to it, that I forgot to post the next chapter... several times. Its here now!

Dean hated this.

Sammy seemed to be doing okay, which was… good. Dean didn’t understand how he could just be fine with it, but at least one of them was keeping it together.

“Dean?” Sam asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

“Yeah, I’ll make the call.” He reached for his phone as he left, but it started to buzz in his hand before he did anything.

“Did you know I was about to call you?”

“ _What? No. I said I would call today.”_

Oh, he had, hadn’t he? Dean felt a little surprised that he was following through on that though.

“ _How are you?_ ”

“I’m fine,” he said. He didn’t want to talk about Mary, not right now. “Listen, Sam and I are in Iowa and… it’s a weird one. Biblical weird. You haven’t heard anything on angel radio, have you? Rogue angel, weird smitings?”

“ _No. Heaven remains closed for the time being, no angels in or out.”_

“What about Lucifer?” Dean asked. “This doesn’t seem like his style, but—”

“ _It’s not Lucifer. Crowley and I—_ ”

“Crowley?” Dean repeated. “Wait, is that the ‘nothing worth sharing’ you mentioned last night? ‘Cause, buddy, that would’ve been worth mentioning.”

Cas sighed. “ _We are, temporarily, working together to track down the devil._ ”

Dean mentally tallied up all the time working with Crowley had backfired on them. Even if his more recent involvement with them hadn’t gone completely sideways, his track record was abysmal.

“You know you can’t trust him, right?” It hurt a little, that Cas was willing to take a _demon_ for backup but had declined the Winchester’s offer to help.

“ _Yes, of course. But he won’t leave me alone and he does have as much a reason to find Lucifer as we do._ ”

“Any word on Hell’s favorite angel with daddy issues?”

“ _Rowena sent him to the bottom of the ocean in the rapidly decaying body of Vince Vicente_.”

Dean blinked several times, trying to unpack all of that. “What?”

“ _She says it likely won’t last very long. But she did offer future assistance in taking him down.”_

“Vince Vicente?” Dean repeated, still stuck about twelve paces behind. “Lucifer, the _devil_ , is wearing Vince Vicente, the washed-up musician? What? Are you serious?”

“ _Is that weird?_ ”

“Yeah, Cas, it’s weird. Really, really weird.”

“ _Well, he’ll probably be moving on soon_ ,” he said. He paused, then in a lower voice said, “ _Crowley’s back. We’ll talk later._ ”

“Alright, yeah. Thanks for the heads up.”

He hung up and sent a text to Mary, the immediately scolded himself for it. He was being ridiculous. If she didn’t want to be in their lives, _fine_. He’d made it this far without her.

The decision to drop in on Jody and the girls wasn’t so much a choice as it was a given. Sioux Falls was like a second home, and they had long ago established that they would swing by if they were in the area—first, to visit Bobby, but now to visit Jody.

They still hadn’t told her about Mary, despite having talked to her _several_ times since her return. There had been plenty of opportunities, but how exactly was he supposed to start a conversation like that? ‘Oh yeah, by the way, bio-mom is back from the dead.’ On top of all the regular weirdness, Dean felt like he was betraying someone, though he honestly didn’t know _who_. Had he betrayed Mom’s memory by allowing Jody to fill the void? Was he betraying Jody by not telling her? Was it a disservice to both of them that he had expected Mary to be something more?

“Wow! You look terrible. What’s wrong?” Jody said, answering the door.

They laughed and kissed her on the cheek as they let themselves in, Sam mentioning the nearby case.

“You couldn’t take a shower first?”

“Oh, ha ha. Figured we’d stop by on the way home to check on you, Claire, and Alex.”

“Aww, that’s fun.” Claire and Alex were away at a concert, but that wasn’t going to stop them from hanging out with Jody for the afternoon.

Or, as it turned out, for the weekend.

She halfheartedly tried to deflect them away, but they weren’t going to let he go to a friend’s wake alone.

They didn’t go to hunter gatherings, that much was true. Get more than 5 hunters in a room together, something nasty was bound to find out and it ruin the fun. So meeting up with a bunch of hunters outside their circle was… surreal.

“Dude, did you know people tell stories about us?”

“Yeah, apparently we’re a little bit legendary.” Or maybe urban-legendary. Dean just hoped none of those hunters had ever gotten their hands on the _Supernatural_ books.

But all legends eventually died, didn’t they? Asa had. It was only a matter of time before the Winchesters would too.

Mom showing up to the wake was something Dean hadn’t been prepared for. If he’d had any idea she knew Asa, he might’ve mentioned something to Jody on the way over, instead of trying to distract her with an endless, graphic recount of killing Hitler.

Instead, they’re stuck in the awkward position of introducing the two of them, _at a wake_ , when neither even knew the other existed.

“Mom? Your mom?” She leaped to hug Mary, who was surprised by the wave of affection from a total stranger. But she quickly realized, from the expression on the boys’ faces, that this was not a purely happy reunion, and made herself scarce.

Dean couldn’t believe this.

He was _trying_ to understand where she was coming from. He was. But more and more it just felt like their _own mother_ wanted to be as far away from them as she could get.

“So, you’ll text us once a week, maybe. But you’ll drive all the way to Canada to see some dead guy?” He didn’t care how childish he sounded. It _hurt_. “I’m gonna catch some air.”

Jody stopped him at the door. “You okay?”

“Swell.” Obviously not.

“Huh. Is that why you spent the entire ride up here telling me in extreme, excruciating detail, how you killed Hitler,” she said, and he was so sure she was going to give him a reaming, but her voice softened. “But you neglected to mention that your mom was back from the dead?”

“Yeah, no big deal,” he said, trying to brush it off. But it was a big deal. A huge deal.

“That’s a lie.”

“Jody…” He didn’t want to talk about this now. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this ever.

“Look, maybe this isn’t my place, and this is epic stuff, but you know, if I could have my son and husband back, I mean really back, I would give anything, absolutely anything to have that.” Was this supposed to be a guilt trip? Her way of saying he should be more grateful? “And it would scare the hell out of me.”

Oh. What? “Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah. ‘Cause what if I’ve changed? What if they changed? What if it just didn’t work out the way I wanted?”

Gods, how he loved this woman.

“If you wanna talk about anything, absolutely anything. I’m here.”

“Thanks Jody,” he said, his voice threatening to release everything he was feeling.

It wasn’t fair to any of them, he realized eventually. Jody was practically super-mom; she was a cop and a hunter, and somehow managed to be a great mom too—not only to the son she had lost, but to the girls she’d adopted, and in many ways, to Sam and Dean. He’d had expectations of Mary, based loosely on all that he knew about her, but more on what he _wanted_ her to be. And it wasn’t like he expected her to be Jody, they already _had_ Jody. But he had thought of Mary as larger than life, had an idea of her that she could maybe never live up to.

“We weren’t sure how to tell you,” Dean said. He, Sam, and Jody had loaded back into the impala, after the salt-and-burn of more bodies than they had bargained for, and they were headed back to Sioux Falls. Hunter gatherings never were a good idea.

“Why?” she asked. Her voice was a little hoarse, and Dean hoped she was okay. Demon possession could be a bitch.

“Honestly?” Sam said. “You’re the closest thing we’ve had to a mom in… ever. There didn’t seem to be a right way.”

Sam and Dean had a lot of experience when it came to weird family shit.

Increasingly weird, as of late.

But Lucifer possessing the president and getting his aide pregnant? That one really took the cake.

Dean had been to Hell. Forty long years of torture and then torturing. It was every bit as bad as it sounded.

Two months in a secret American Prison?

Worse.

Solitary confinement, no human interaction beyond the guard passing the slop, nothing to do but get lost in his head. And knowing that Sammy was just on the other side of the wall, but completely unable to communicate with on another… in some ways it may have made it easier, knowing that they’re still in this together. But it also made it worse, knowing they that his little brother was stuck in this hellhole too.

So, Dean was fully prepared to sacrifice himself so Sammy could get out of this damned place. He was even kind of prepared for the possibility that it was going to be Sammy—he didn’t like it one bit, but he knew from their track record, Sam wasn’t going to let him go without a fight.

Regardless of how it went down, at least they would get to say goodbye, to each other, and to Mom and Cas.

“ _This is my voicemail—_ ” Dean ended the call. Hearing Cas’ voice, and his stupid outgoing message, brought a wave of comfort he didn’t have time for.

“Come on, Cas,” he said, dialing again.

“ _What_?” The voice on the other end sounded gruff, bordering on hostile.

“Cas.”

“ _Dean?_ ” His tone shifted completely.

“Hey buddy, long time.”

“ _Wha—What happened? Where are you?_ ” Damn it was so good to hear his voice. Dean willed himself to not get lost in it.

“You wouldn’t believe me, and I have no clue.” He looked to Sam, who was trying to triangulate where in the hell they might’ve been. “You get that?”

“ _Yes—_ ”

“Alright, meet us there.”

“ _Wait. Where?_ ” Somewhere along SR 34, probably, wasn’t exactly a precise location.

“Just drive along the road, you’ll see us. And Cas, the sooner the better. We’re kind of on the clock here.” He hung up and ditched the battery before Cas could question further. Telling him now would just waste more time they didn’t have.

They were both prepared to die.

But now that they had made it out, now that they were safely reunited with their family, he wasn’t so sure.

His hand and Cas’ were clasped tightly, clinging together as though they were both afraid the other might disappear.

How the hell was he supposed to say goodbye?

The car stalled out as the clock struck midnight.

“It’s time,” Sammy said.

Dean, who had been steadily avoiding looking at Cas, stole a glance in his direction, and immediately regretted it.

How was he supposed to do this?

That place was worse than hell; in every way it was worse than hell. As hard as it was, they were prepared to die in order for one of them to live.

Neither of them was prepared to Mary to volunteer.

And none of them expected Cas to stab Billie though the back.

“Cas, what’ve you done?”

“What had to be done,” he said. “You know, this world, this sad little world, it needs you. It needs every last Winchester it can get, and I will not let you die. And I won’t let you sacrifice yourselves; you mean too much to me. To everything.

“Yeah, you made a deal. You made a stupid deal, and I broke it. You’re welcome.”

But it wasn’t that easy. No _way_ could it be that easy.

Dean had been prepared to die. He was, perhaps for the first time in his life, prepared to lose Sam.

But he wasn’t ready to lose Cas—and he was terrified that was what Billie’s _cosmic consequences_ would circle back to.

“So how long do you think you’re gonna stay mad?” Sam asked as they set off for a haunting in Hutchinson, leaving Cas behind to continue the search for Kelly Kline.

“Maybe forever,” Dean answered, turning up the music in the hopes that it would shut Sam up.

“Come on,” Sam pleaded. “He thought he was doing the right thing, to save us.”

“So what? What he did was stupid and reckless.”

“And? Stupid and reckless is pretty much what we do.”

“This is different,” Dean said.

“Why, because you’re in love with him?”

“Of course it’s because I’m in love with him,” Dean snapped.

Sam looked up at him in surprise. “You—you are?”

“Yes, Sam, I’m in love with the feathery douchebag. Not like it’s a big secret. Sure seems like everyone knows.”

“Yeah, no. I just—didn’t think _you_ knew.”

“Are we seriously doing this right now?” Dean asked. He didn’t want to do this _ever_.

“You know what, yeah, Dean, we are doing this right now.” He shifted in the seat, angling his body so he could more easily look at his brother. “It’s almost two hours to Hutchinson, and it’s not like you’re gonna suddenly want to talk about this later, so, yeah. Now.”

“Fine. Yes, I knew. I’m not clueless. I’ve known for a while.” Years.

“And you’re… cool with that?”

“Right now? No. He’s a pain in the ass with a death wish, and I’d be so much less pissed if I just didn’t care.” But here they were. He _did_ care. And he was pissed.

“No, that’s not—I mean, he’s a guy. And you’re _you_.”

“I’ve been bi since we were kids, Sammy, ain’t nothing new there.”

“Huh.” Sam shifted again and looked back out at the blacktop, sufficiently silenced for the moment. Good. Maybe they could move on and pretend this never happened. “You never told me,” Sam said a little while later. “You’ve known _since we were kids_ , and you never said anything.”

“Sam—” he started.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, throwing Dean for a loop. “I’m sorry you thought you couldn’t tell me.”

Dean groaned internally. “It’s not like that, Sammy,” he said. “I wasn’t _keeping it_ from you. We just… we don’t talk about this shit, man.”

“But we could. And don’t—Don’t say ‘no chick flick moments’,” he said, interrupting Dean’s plan to say exactly that. “I’m calling bullshit on that. We’re not these big, macho, emotionless men that dad wanted us to be, we’re just not. We can talk about whatever.”

“Alright, Sammy.” He was right; in so many ways they weren’t what dad expected them to be. They were better. Their family was so much more cohesive now than it had ever been back then, and they hadn’t gotten that way by pretending they didn’t care about one another. “And hey, what’s more macho than screwing dudes?” he said, cracking a wry smile.

Sam laughed, throwing his head back. Dean joined in, turning up the stereo once more.

Even days later, he was still mad.

He wished he could just not be; he knew he didn’t serve any purpose; it wasn’t _helping_ anything.

He was scared, that when they came back from the hunt, Cas wasn’t going to be there, that he’d have just disappeared in the night and they were never going to know what happened to him.

But when they got home, he was still there, and Dean circled right back around to angry again. Was it going to be like this forever, until the other shoe finally dropped? How was he supposed to live with the constant worry that any moment could be the last time he saw Cas?

Maybe it would be better if he could just get over it, take advantage of whatever time they did have left. But he couldn’t figure out how to let go of the anger. It consumed him.

“You hear from Mom yet?” Sam asked as they looked over Cas’ wall of crazy.

Dean rattled off what she had told him the night before. He still worried that she was jumping back into hunting awfully fast—then again, he’d been off the grid for two months, what did he know?

“I don’t think we have the kind of mom who’s gonna stay home and make us chicken soup for dinner,” Sam said. And maybe that was a good thing; they were way beyond needing that mom anyway, and knowing that she was maybe just as incapable of leaving the hunter life as they were, somehow it made everything feel a little better. Like they hadn’t failed her. “You talk to Cas yet?” he asked.

“No,” Dean said quickly, hoping they could leave it at just that. Sam had mostly let him be after their talk, no pressing too hard about the whole situation, but if he knew Sam, and he did, it was only a matter of time.

“So, what, you’re just gonna keep walking past each other in the kitchen, not saying a word?” And there it was.

“Maybe.”

Sam started on about how Cas was just doing what he had to do to save mom, saving them all, and Dean _knew_ okay. He knew. And he was grateful that Cas cared about them enough to do what he had done. But they weren’t going to get off scot-free on this, no consequences. They just didn’t get that lucky. It didn’t matter if Cas thought he was doing the right thing—

“I _was_ doing the right thing,” Cas said, joining them in the war room.

“You sure about that?” Dean asked.

“Yes,” he said in a tone of complete certainty.

“Well, I’m not. And when the other shoe drops—”

“I’ll deal with it,” Cas said.

Dean scoffed, biting back what he wanted to say. Cas _wasn’t_ the one who would have to deal with it, they all were. When fate came to take what it was owed, Cas’ might’ve been the one holding the dues, but they weren’t going to leave him standing alone.

“I have to go,” Cas added, heaving for the door

“Got a lead on Kelly?” Sam asked, while Dean stewed over his coffee. If Cas wanted to go, fine. Fuck him.

“No, this is personal.”

Personal? What the hell did that mean? It wasn’t like Cas had friends.

Or maybe he did. Angel friends. ‘Cause that always ended well for him.

“We’ll come with you,” Sam volunteered.

“Both of you?” Cas asked, his lips pursed as he looked at Dean expectantly.

Dean sighed. “Sure,” he said begrudgingly. “Yeah, we could help. Gotta make sure you don’t do anything else stupid.” At least if they tagged along, Dean could keep an eye on him, and worry a little less. Cas rolled his eyes and Sam shot him a glare. Fuck them. He wasn’t letting go of this yet.

It was probably the most awkward car ride they’ve had together in a while, if not ever. Dean was pissed, Cas was pissed, and Sam… well, Dean actually felt a little bad that Sammy was trapped in the middle of it.

“Wow, this Benjamin seems like he’s pretty cool,” Dean said. “Like the kind of guy who wouldn’t make any half-cocked, knee-jerk choices.”

“Yeah, you know what I like about him is that he’s sarcastic, but he’s thoughtful and appreciative too,” Cas said, taking a tone Dean wasn’t sure he’d heard from him before.

“Now what is that supposed to mean?” Like _Dean_ was the one who’d screwed up somehow.

“Okay, road!” Sam said, reaching for the wheel. “Watch the road, dude.”

“I got it.” He took a deep breath and tried to redirect his frustration into something more useful. Treat this like just another case, maybe.

“Ishim said to come alone,” Cas said, telling them to wait with the car. “He doesn’t like humans.” Well, wasn’t that just typical for an angel. Dean threw his hands in the air. “If I plan to do anything else stupid, I’ll let you know.”

“This isn’t healthy, you know,” Sam said, leaning against the car.

“Never said it was.”

“Dean…” Sam started.

“What do you want from me, Sammy?”

“I don’t know, man, just. Cut him some slack.”

Dean bit his cheek, shaking his head in frustration. Maybe it would be easier if he knew where they stood. Cas viewed the Winchesters as family, and they of course felt the same. But he and Dean… it was different, but Dean didn’t know what it _meant_ for them. Maybe it would be easier if he did.

Probably not.

The only way it could be easier was if he didn’t care so damn much.

He continued pacing without saying a word.

“And you’re gonna storm in riiiight… now.”

He was nothing if not predictably ill-tempered.

And this guy, _Ishim_ , was an _ass_. Contemptuous of Sam and Dean, and disdainful toward Cas for their association.

“Dean, its fine,” Cas said.

“No, no it’s not,” Sam said.

“Sam, this isn’t about me, it’s about Benjamin.”

The asshole continued on, effectively ignoring Dean and Sam other than to turn up his nose at them, and then left to find the other angel.

“Hell of a friend, Cas,” Sam said, moving to the other bench.

“Why do you let him talk to you like that?” Dean knew him to be perfectly capable of defending himself under ordinary circumstances, so why did he let this ‘friend’ walk all over him?

“If Ishim can help me find whoever killed Benjamin, then I have to.”

“Are you done?” Dean asked, once Ishim was put down for the murder he’d committed all those years ago. Everyone responsible was dead now, everyone except Cas.

“Revenge is all I’ve had for over a hundred years,” Lily Sunder said.

“Wrong answer,” Dean said. “You’re done.” Otherwise she’d have to cut through he and Sammy first.

“Dean,” Cas said, stopping him from making any threats. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. And while it’s true that I didn’t know that we were killing an innocent, ignorance is no excuse. I truly can’t imagine the depths of your loss. This was your child; I can’t imagine the pain. So if you leave here, and find that you can’t forgive me, I’ll be waiting.”

“Thank you,” Lily said, and she walked away. She had her revenge.

“Shit,” Dean said, rubbing his face with his hand once she was gone.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sam said. “You good, Cas?”

“My wounds will heal,” he replied.

“I’m gonna grab dinner,” Sam said as they got out of the car back at the bunker. “That is, if you two can manage twenty minutes without fighting.”

“We’re fine,” Dean said gruffly. “I could go for Chinese.”

Sam nodded. “Cas? Want anything?”

The angel shrugged. Sometimes he enjoyed the process of eating as human’s did, but it was always a hit-or-miss. Even foods he had discovered to be palatable were sometimes unacceptable.

“Got it,” Sam said, sliding into the driver’s seat once Dean was out of the way.

Dean walked into the bunker ahead of Cas, dropping his things with the growing mess on the map table. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said over his shoulder, heading down the hall.

“I’m fine,” Cas said, but trailed after him just the same.

“Bullshit. Your wounds aren’t healing. Sit,” he said, motioning to the stool near the sink filling with water.

Cas sighed and sat down. Dean returned a moment later with a couple of small towels. He shut the water off and wet one of the towels before he began carefully blotting at the now-dried blood on Cas’ face.

“What do I always say about trusting angels?” Dean asked.

“Don’t,” Cas answered quietly.

“That’s right, _don’t_.”

“I’m an angel,” he reminded him.

“You’re a Winchester,” Dean corrected. “It’s different.”

Cas sighed, looking down at his hands.

“Hey,” Dean said, guiding his face back up. “Don’t let him get in your head.”

“I know,” he said. He still seemed lost in his thoughts, though.

Dean pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, then set back to cleaning up the remaining cuts on his face.

“Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?” Cas asked after a moment.

“It means I’m worried,” Dean said. “ _Cosmic consequences_. Did I miss anything?”

Cas shook his head. “I don’t understand, Dean,” he said. “You would’ve done the same thing, if our roles were reversed.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, shrugging his shoulders. “I would’ve.”

“Then why—”

“Because I’m not ready to say goodbye to you, buddy.”

“But I’m supposed to be?” Cas asked. “You expected that I would, what, just accept that you were going to die? Or Sam, or Mary? How is that fair?”

“It’s not,” he said.

Before he could say anything more, there was a clamor from elsewhere in the bunker. “I’m back!” Sam’s voice echoed.

Dean patted the uninjured side of Cas’ face and tossed the bloody rags into the hamper. “Come on.”

They found Sam unpacking bags of food onto the limited clear space on the map table, and Dean walked over to join him. Cas hung back in the doorway for a moment. “I got you wonton soup,” Sam told him, setting a spot for him at the table. “You don’t have to eat it though.”

“Thank you,” Cas said, moving to join them.

“So, you’re done being mad at him?” Sam asked as Dean grabbed an extra beer from the fridge.

“Yeah, I’m done.”

“You gonna tell him that?”

Dean rolled his eyes as they rounded the corner into the war room. “You earned it,” he said, setting the extra beer down in front of Cas and patting him on the shoulder.

“Well, this will do very little for me, but I appreciate the gesture.” He looked at the bottle briefly, then set it back on the table.

“What Ishim said,” Dean started. “You’re not weak, Cas. You know that, right?” Dean thought quite the opposite. It was Cas’ connection to humanity that made him stronger. Chuck must’ve thought there was something good there too, if the long string of free revives were any indication.

“I mean, obviously you’ve changed,” Sam chimed in. “But it’s all been for the better, man.”

“And you have been with us every step of this long, crazy thrill ride. And, no matter how crazy it got, you never backed down.”

“That takes real strength,” Sam said.

“Thank you,” Cas said, though he still didn’t seem like he believed it.

“Cas, I don’t like how this whole Billie thing went down, okay? I know you thought you were doing the right thing. And I’m not _mad_ , I’m worried. Because things like ‘cosmic consequences’ have a habit of biting us in the ass.”

“I know they do,” Cas said. “But I don’t regret what I did. Even if it costs me my life.”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Well, he was a Winchester, in every way that mattered.

“Don’t say that, man,” Sam said.

Dean sighed and shifted gears. “So, what are you going to do if you find Kelly and Lucifer Junior? It is a Nephilim, right?” The angels had killed that little girl just _thinking_ she was one; they knew without a doubt that the child Kelly was carrying was Lucifer’s. No ordinary Nephilim.

“At the end of the day, it’s a mom and her kid,” Sam said. “I mean, do you think you’ll be able to…”

“There was a time when I wouldn’t have hesitated,” Cas said, shaking his head. “But now I don’t know.”

“So, what are we going to do?” Dean asked.

“Let’s drink. And hope we can find a better way.”


	12. Stranger Than It Seemed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and forth on whether or not to even include this for while, and tbh, I'm still not sure if I made the right choice. I do like this chapter, weird as it may be, but I'm not sure how well it fits. *shrug* Anyway, if you hate this chapter, sorrynotsorry, but I promise you will LOVE next chapter.

Dean was picking up burgers in town when a familiar face stopped him dead. A familiar face wearing a Zeppelin shirt under a gray flannel.

“Ben?” he breathed out, not loud enough for the boy to hear him. Except, he was hardly a boy now. Dean did some quick mental math to arrive at the conclusion that he must’ve been about 18. He looked older.

Ben caught sight of him from across the street and furrowed his brow before looking down at something in his hands. He looked up at Dean again and started walking, making a beeline right for him.

No. No, Ben wasn’t supposed to know who he was.

Dean probably should’ve turned and ran, or something, but instead he just stood there, panicked, until Ben was standing right in front of him.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Are you… are you Dean Winchester?”

Dean blinked. He didn’t remember. Good. But then he tensed again. What was he doing _here_? Why was he looking for him?

“Sorry,” the kid said. “I’m Ben. You’re Dean, right?”

“Yeah,” Dean said finally. “Do you know me?”

Ben shook his head. “I think my mom did.”

“Lisa,” he said, unable to stop himself.

Ben nodded.

“Did she… did she talk about me?”

Ben shook his head. “She never mentioned you. But I found a picture of you in some of her old things.”

Dean’s head was reeling, scrambling to keep up with the lack of information being conveyed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Where is Lisa?”

“She died,” he said sadly. “About a year ago.”

He’d had panic attacks before, more than a few of them after he had first returned from Hell, and here and there ever sense. The feeling was familiar, but that didn’t mean he was any better equipped to handle it.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked.

Dean shook his head. Lisa was supposed to be _safe_. “I just need to sit down,” he said, then turned and walked back into the diner where he’d bought the burgers. He sat down in the booth nearest the door and tried to breath.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said, sitting down across from him. “I didn’t mean to—you knew her well?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. He dug one of the burgers out of the bag and bit into it, hoping the simple activity would calm him down. He slid the bag toward Ben, offering him the other burger, but the kid declined. Dean swallowed. “How did you find me?” he asked.

Ben took the picture out of his pocket and showed him. It was an old one, of he and Lisa on the hood of the impala, must’ve been from when they first met. Damn, they looked young. Ben flipped the picture over; on the back was only his name _Dean_. “It’s all I had to go on.”

“How the hell did you find me?” Dean asked. “ _Why?_ ”

“It wasn’t easy.” Ben said. “When my mom died, it wasn’t… normal. The police didn’t know what could’ve done it. So this guy from the FBI shows up, but he wasn’t _really_ from the FBI. He hunts monsters or something.”

“What got her?” Dean asked. He didn’t want to know the answer, not really. But he needed to. The pounding in his chest and ears had settled, but the feeling in his stomach remained constant and terrible.

“Werewolf.” He let out a half-hearted laugh. “You know, I always sorta believed in that shit, but if you’d told me before all this… I’d have thought it was crazy.”

Hearing Ben say _shit_ almost triggered the dad in Dean, before he remembered that he wasn’t his dad, not anymore. Not ever, really.

“So my mom is dead and I’ve just learned that monsters are real. Hard to just go off to college after that.”

Dean felt his heart sink. He knew where this went. He never wanted this.

“So I started… well, I can’t really say hunting; I’ve met hunters and I’m not that. But I needed to know everything I could. The internet gets like 75% of it wrong, but I’ve figured a few things out. Anyway,” he shook his head, realigning his thoughts. “I wasn’t just looking for answers, I was looking for you. I had no idea you were a hunter, and I had nothing to go from, but I got lucky. I met a hunter who knew you. It was pure luck, she saw the picture and identified you.”

“Who?” Dean asked, as though the answer mattered.

“Blonde girl, couple years older than me. Said you were sort of like her father?”

“Claire,” Dean filled in. Maybe if he could have processed _anything_ at that moment, his heart might’ve soared at the idea of her thinking of him that way. But as it was, he wasn’t feeling much of anything.

“Yeah, Claire. She was helping me learn about werewolves, and when she realized I was looking for you, she got really weird. I think she thought I wanted to kill you or something. Does that happen to you a lot?”

“You could say that.” He rubbed his eyes, feeling like all of this left him with more questions than answers.

“So she didn’t trust me at first, but I guess something I said made her change her mind, because she told me I could find you here. And here you are.”

“Here I am,” he repeated.

It was getting late, and though he was used to running on little sleep, this was especially draining. He brought Ben back to the bunker, offering him a bed for the night and the promise that they could talk more in the morning. He didn’t expect that he would be any more emotionally prepared for this then, though.

“You never said why you were looking for me,” Dean said before leaving Ben in one of the many spare rooms.

Ben took a deep breath. “I think you might be my dad.”

Dean felt like he’d been hit, though not for the first time that night. Having no idea what to say, Dean closed the door between them and metaphorically ran away.

 _You hunt monsters and kill demons,_ he scolded himself. _But one teenager is too much?_

He dragged himself into the study and poured himself a glass of whiskey. Part of him was glad that he had the place almost to himself—Sam and Cas were following up on a case two towns over, Mom was off doing… whatever it was she did—but part of him wished someone was there to keep him from his own thoughts.

He pulled out his phone and typed up a quick text to Claire. **Next time you send someone looking for me, a heads up would be nice**. He hit send then scrolled back through to call Cas. Before he could, however, the phone started ringing. _Claire_. Dean took another sip of whiskey before answering.

“ _Ohmygod are you okay?”_ she asked, her voice loud and rushed.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just surprised.”

She started up again before he could say any more. “ _I tried to get a hold of you after I talked to him. He seemed genuine, but, you know. I shouldn’t have sent him at all, I just thought I’d be able to warn you. I tried, I swear!”_

“Kid, it’s okay. Calm down.” If only he could take that advice.

“ _I talked to Cas, he said you were missing. I told him about Ben, I thought he would tell you—”_

“Take a breath, kiddo,” Dean said. “I said it’s okay. It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, it must’ve slipped his mind.” He’d talk to Cas about it later.

“ _So, Ben. Are you, you know, his dad_?” she asked.

No, and yes, and then no again. “It’s complicated,” was what he said.

Claire laughed. “ _Dude, who do you think you’re talking to? I dare you to find someone who’s parental situation is more complicated than mine. I don’t even know what to put on the college applications._ ”

“He’s not,” Dean said. “But he was like my son for a bit. He doesn’t remember it though.”

“ _I’m sensing there’s a lot to that story,”_ she said. “ _Wanna talk about it?_ ”

“Not particularly. What about you? You’re applying to college?” He felt a twinge of something at that. It wasn’t quite pride, but he was glad for some sense of normal in her life.

But the sound she made was something closer to a groan. “ _Yeah. I don’t know, man. I’ve visited a few schools and Jody is really enthusiastic about it.”_

“But…?”

“ _How am I supposed to just sit in a lecture hall and learn about English or ancient history or whatever, and just pretend that I don’t know what’s really out there?”_

He laughed lightly. “You’re asking the wrong Winchester,” he said. “But hey, that ancient history can be more helpful than you realize.”

“ _I know_ ,” she said with a sigh. “ _I’m just not feeling it. I want to be out hunting, you know?_ ”

That did give him a little bit of pride. He understood the need to hunt, maybe more than anyone. And even if she wasn’t his kid, he couldn’t take any credit for raising her, past or present, she still, in some ways, felt like his. “Have you talked to Jody?” he asked.

She hesitated for a moment. “ _I don’t know how_ ,” she said quietly.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. They talked for a bit longer, mostly about nothing, but at the end, he realized how much calmer he felt. He kind of wished he could hug her. “You know you can call me if you need anything, right?”

“ _I know_ ,” she said.

Dean didn’t sleep—his instinct was telling him that this really was Ben, that it wasn’t some ploy, but at that moment, he wasn’t sure if he could trust his instinct.

He was still sitting in the library, lost in thought, when Sam and Cas returned from their trip. How long had they been gone?

“You okay, man?” Sam asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

Dean scratched his face. “Yeah, nope,” he said. “Ben is here.”

Sam furrowed his brown, while Cas’ eyes went wide.

“Ben _Braedon_?” Sam asked.

“Ding ding ding, tell him what he’s won.”

“Dean, I am so sorry,” Cas said. “Claire called while you were in prison and—”

“And then everything happened and you forgot?” Dean filled in. He nodded. “I figured. It’s okay.”

“Where is he? What happened? Does he remember you?”

“One question at a time, Sammy,” Dean said, feeling too overwhelmed to process most of it. “He’s sleeping down the hall. No, he doesn’t remember.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“Lisa died.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Werewolf, of all things. He tracked me down from an old picture, looking for answers, I guess.”

“Holy _shit_ , dude,” was all Sam had to say.

“I’m not even 100% sure it’s him,” Dean said. “I didn’t check him or anything.”

“Warding,” Sam said, reminding him that there wasn’t much that could get through their walls without being detecting.

“We’ll keep an eye,” Cas said. “You should get some rest.”

Dean nodded, allowing his brother and his angel to help him to his feet.

“What am I supposed to tell him?” Dean asked as they made their way down the hall.

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam said, pushing open the door to Dean’s room.

“I can fix the memories I altered,” Cas offered.

“No,” Dean said quickly. He didn’t think it would help, certainly not now. “Maybe…” He sighed. “Maybe if it’s what he wants.” Dean fell into the bed, not bothering to pull back the blankets first.

“Try to get some sleep,” Sam said. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”

“Thanks,” he said, and the pair of them left the room. “Wait, Cas.” Cas stopped at the door and turned back. “I need a favor.” Dean tapped two fingers to his own forehead, silently begging Cas to put him in angelically induced 8-hour coma. It was the only way he was going to sleep.

Cas nodded and stepped toward him, placing two fingers in the center of his forehead and—

Dean awoke feeling unusually well rested, but the feeling of calm quickly passed into panic.

There was a knock at the door, as if someone was waiting until he woke up.

“Yeah, Cas?”

“How’d you know it was me?” he asked, pushing the door open slowly.

“No one else could’ve perfectly timed it.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Blindsided. Lost. Confused.”

Cas nodded, seemingly expecting all of those things. He bit his lip. “Sam found out more about Lisa’s… about what happened to Lisa. If you want to know more.”

Dean shook his head. He wasn’t ready for that. “Not yet. Where’s Ben?”

“Eating breakfast.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Who made breakfast?” he asked. Between Sam and Cas, _neither_ was an ideal candidate.

Cas smiled. “I offered to make pancakes.” Dean’s eyes went wide in horror. “But Sam indicated that it might be better to order in from that place you like in town.”

“Oh, thank god.”

Cas frowned. “Are my cooking skills really so terrible?”

A smile quirked at Dean’s mouth. “You can’t taste food the way humans do.”

Cas contemplated this non-answer while Dean hurried to dress himself presentably.

“I am sorry, Dean,” Cas said after a few moments.

“It’s okay,” Dean said. “Really. There was a lot going on, I get it.”

“Not just that. I erased their memories, and—”

“I asked you to,” Dean reminded him.

“Because of mistakes that _I_ made. And I can’t help but think… perhaps things might’ve happened differently if they were more prepared.”

Dean shook his head. “Cas. You think the same thing isn’t playing in my head on repeat? That maybe she would be okay if it weren’t for my stupid choices? But we can’t do this to ourselves.” They could play the self-blame game all day; hell, with them, they could probably do it for years. But it wasn’t going to change anything. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go figure out what to tell him.”

When he got down to the kitchen, he found Sam and Ben sitting quietly at the table, eating.

“I should get to work,” Sam said, rising from the table as soon as he noticed Dean, and quickly made himself scarce.

“Morning,” he said to Ben, pouring himself a mug of coffee and taking a sip. He closed his eyes briefly, grateful that Cas had made it—it was the one human thing he always got perfect.

“Good morning,” Ben said. “This place is strange.” He held up a book from the Men of Letters collection, which might’ve worried him more if it wasn’t in Latin.

“Yeah, its… something. Greatest collection of monster lore in the country.”

“Sam mentioned something like that. He’s your brother?”

Dean nodded. “He give you the book? Not exactly light reading.”

“I think he just forgot to take it with him.”

Dean sat down across from him, setting down his coffee. “I’m not your father,” he said. Shit. So much for working up to the difficult stuff.

“Oh,” Ben said after a moment. “You’re sure?”

Was he? “Every time I asked, she said I wasn’t.” There had been a time he would’ve loved to be his dad. But now? Now he just wanted to keep him as far away as he could; safe.

“Every time you asked,” he repeated, trying to figure it out. “I don’t understand. You know me. You recognized me last night, but I’ve never seen you before in my life. And mom, she… she never talked about you…”

“Let’s take a walk,” Dean said. He rose from the table and Ben followed him out of the bunker.

“She never kept secrets from me,” Ben said. “We talked about everything. The only thing she never told me was who my dad was. So, I thought… if she never talked about that, and she never talked about you…”

“She didn’t talk about me because she couldn’t,” Dean said finally. “She didn’t remember me.”

Ben was silent for a moment, and Dean, not sure how to go forward, let him try process it. “What?”

“My friend Cas—Castiel, you probably met him,” he said, tilting his heat back toward the bunker. Ben nodded his confirmation. “He’s sorta got superpowers.” Dean didn’t want to drag the kid any further into this than he had to, any further than he already was. Vague was better here. “Something happened several years back, and I decided that it would be safer for both of you if you didn’t remember me. So, he altered your memories.”

Dean bit his lip and shoved his hands in his pockets, unsure what to say next.

“You changed our memories?” Ben finally asked, several agonizingly long minutes later.

Dean nodded. “Not my finest moment, but I thought it was the only way.”

“Would she… would she still have died, if she knew?”

Dean took a deep breath. “Honestly? I’ve been wracking my brain over that all night. I don’t know. Things… things like this happen fast. Even seasoned hunters are taken by surprise. Would it have made a difference if she knew who to call or what to do? I don’t know.”

Ben nodded slowly, perhaps understanding. “Can you undo it?” he asked quietly.

“If that’s what you want, yeah.”

“You should strongly consider if this is what you want,” Castiel said. “Recovered memories can be… a difficult process.”

“I need to know the truth,” Ben said.

Dean paced back and forth across the war room. “Dean, please sit down,” Sam hissed. “You’re making me anxious.”

As if Dean didn’t have a thousand and one reasons to be anxious right now. Ultimately, the outcome of this shouldn’t have mattered—Ben already wasn’t in his life, if he ended up hating him, it wasn’t going to _change_ things. And if he didn’t hate him… then what?

Cas raised his hands to either side of Ben’s head. They glowed softly for a few moments, then the warm light faded, and Ben furrowed his brow.

Dean almost considered asking Cas for one more thing while he was in there but… Honestly, he didn’t want to know the answer. If he _was_ Ben’s father, what good would it do either of them? Being related to him was a curse, not a blessing, and the truth wouldn’t make it any easier to deal with.

“It may take a few hours for your mind to fully process,” Cas said, lowering his hands. “You should take it easy.”

Ben _thanked_ him.

“What?”

“I’m not saying I’m happy about the way things happened,” Ben said. “Actually, I am kinda mad. I don’t know that I can just forgive you for what happened, but… I got to have a pretty normal life. I don’t think I would’ve gotten that if we had known.”

“So, what are you going to do now?”

Ben shrugged. “I was applying to colleges when… when she died. I think I might just… go back to that.”

Dean smiled slightly. “Good.” Stay far away from this life. Be normal. “If you ever need anything… I mean _anything_. Don’t hesitate to call.”

Dean watched him get on the bus, headed to Indiana, where he might get to continue that normal life.

In a way, he hoped he never heard from him again. If he did, it was surely a bad sign.

But part of him also hoped that maybe he would call just to say hi.


	13. Livin' In You

“What can I get you, cutie,” the bartender said when Dean flagged her down. The bar was loud and rumbling, and somewhere behind him a young, very drunk girl was being cheered onto a mechanical bull.

Dean grinned back at her. “I’ll take a couple burgers and… something for my hippie brother, if you’ve got anything?”

“Got a mushroom burger,” she offered.

“Yeah, we’ll go with that.”

She nodded. “It’ll be a bit, anything to drink while you wait?”

“Couple shots of tequila.”

She poured him a pair of shots before moving on to her next patron, but Dean caught her looking at him at least a couple more times. He put on his best panty-dropping smile and raise his eyebrows at her. She winked back.

“Oh yeah, Winchester,” he said to himself. “You still got it.” He couldn’t remember the last time he got laid, but he was certain this was the longest dry spell of his life. He wasn’t 28 anymore, but he was still a badass, and at least he knew his looks weren’t declining. “Two more,” he signaled when the bartender came by again.

“Easy there, tiger,” she said, but poured the requested shots.

“Hey, I’ve got a date with a bull,” he said.

“You’re gonna ride Larry?” she asked, a hint of disbelief in her voice.

“I’m gonna ride Larry,” he said, finishing off the next shot before vacating his stool and strutting over to the bull ring.

A little voice in the back of his mind, one that sounded not unlike Sammy, was telling him he maybe should _not_ ride Larry, but he happily ignored that voice and mounted the bull. He was cheered on by the crowd of drunken patrons, which grew increasingly raucous with every passing second, until finally the bull tossed him off. He landed mostly on his feet, steadied himself, then took a bow with a flourish, earning more cheers, before hopping back to the bar.

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” the bartender said when he returned. Things seemed to have calmed down slightly, but they still had to yell over the roar.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Dean asked.

“Elka.”

“Hi Elka, I’m Dean.”

“Anything else I can get for you, Dean?” she asked, sliding his bag of burgers toward him.

“How ‘bout a kiss?” He honestly didn’t expect much, and generally speaking, he didn’t like hitting on girls when they were at work, but she surprised him by leaning across the bar and planting one right on his mouth.

The next thing he knew, she was dragging him into a darkened storeroom, kissing him harshly as her hands roamed down his chest. He kissed back with equal enthusiasm, pressing her into the wall as his hands found their way up the back of her shorts. She reached for his belt and…

And it didn’t feel right.

He pulled away, but before he could say anything, before she could even realize there was a problem, the door was opening. She grinned guiltily at him as someone called out.

“Elka, are you back here?”

“Yeah, just a minute,” she shouted back, straightening her clothes and hair. She popped a quick kiss to his lips. “So um… I’m off in a couple hours, if you wanna meet up after…”

“Sure,” he said.

She smiled again, then left him with a wink.

But he couldn’t meet her after. Even just kissing her, touching her, it felt like cheating.

Which, _what the hell_? It wasn’t like he and Cas were anything defined. So they’d kissed a couple of times, held hands in the back of the car like a pair of teenagers afraid to do anything more. But Dean had no idea where they actually stood.

Still, the angel had ruined him. The love ‘em and leave ‘em Dean Winchester was a thing of the past, and if he was being _really_ honest, it had been a while since he’d clung to that particular notion of himself. The man he was now… well, he wasn’t exactly a family man, but he was a cranky old hunter who cared deeply for the troubled teens who had somehow wormed into his life, and apparently the man he was now would rather go home to his angel than sleep with random hot chicks.

Perhaps strangest of all, he wasn’t even bothered by the realization.

He would forget all of that.

He would forget all of pretty much everything.

Based on the irritated tone in Sammy’s voice, he had already explained their life to him a handful of times—monsters and demons and, currently, witches. _What the hell_?

But even as he knew he was forgetting things, as he could feel the memories slipping away, he clung to some like a lifeline.

Laughing in the car with Sam.

Watching a bee documentary with Cas.

An awkward family dinner with… with girls whose names slipped away the moment he thought of them.

Hugging a dark-haired prophet whose name he also couldn’t remember, but whose memory came with a pang of guilt and hurt.

Digging through archives with Sam.

Kissing Cas.

Hugging his mom for the first time as an adult.

Sam sleeping against the door of the impala as they drove in the night.

Teaching Cas how to make pancakes.

Getting wasted with his family in the months leading to the Apocalypse—their names were already lost, but their memory was filled with sadness.

Sam.

And Cas.

They were the last memories he could hold on to.

Sam.

And then, even he was gone.

Eventually, his memories did return. Everything from before the witch cursed him was back where it belonged, but the time after was somewhat lost in a haze. He remembered mostly what he felt—lost—and there was a vague memory of Rowena talking to him, telling him something that even now made him feel a little better about her.

The next several hours were bizarre though, with a pounding headache and flashes of random memories that he mostly tried to keep buried deep.

Sam drove them home, while Dean nursed his headache against the cool glass of the passenger window, his mind flooded with memories of Bobby, Jo and Ellen, Jody and the girls, Kevin, Ben. Some of them were good memories, in fact, most of them were. But nearly all of them came with knowing that it didn’t end well.

He sighed and closed his eyes.

Memories flowed through him, seemingly at random; things from when he was a kid, stuff from the early days hunting with Sam, things that happened earlier in the year; but it was all jumbled. Some of it had been long forgotten, or never really thought about, until it was suddenly at the forefront of his mind again.

He was struck by just how much space Cas took up in his life. Sam, of course, took the number one spot, hands down. But Cas was right behind him in terms of importance. His memories of them—good, bad, and everything in between—far outweighed everything else.

And he knew that, of course he knew that. But knowing it, and having the immediate visual memories, were two very different things.

A significant portion of his life was defined by the angel’s presence in it, and maybe that should’ve scared him, but it didn’t. Instead he found comfort in it. He would’ve been a very different person, without Cas in his life. Hell, they were both changed simply by knowing one another.

They had been completely different people back then, when they first met. Dean wondered, briefly, who he would be now, if their friendship hadn’t been forged so resolutely all those years ago.

Memories, from a new perspective, had the capacity to show truth. They didn’t become more alike one another, as Dean might’ve thought. The place where they began was sharp, both of them holding steadfast to a set of values that defined them. But their journey was not to meet in the middle, but rather to evolve in unison. Over time, they both mellowed, their sharp edges sanded down, and their harsh and sometimes separate morals grew to encompass all the things they were still learning about the world around them. He was a better man for knowing Cas, and he thought Cas was better too.

There had been many points along the journey that Dean had thought he loved his angel, and at each and every one of them, he’d thought ‘no, _this_ is the most I’ve ever loved him’, though not a single one felt lesser.

By the time he and Sammy got home, they were both exhausted. “You need anything?” Sam asked.

“I’m good,” Dean assured him. Sam nodded and dragged himself down the hall to his room, where he would probably crash without even removing his shoes. Dean knew he should do the same, but despite how tired he was feeling, he found himself wandering. Cas was home, if his truck parked in the garage was anything to go by, but Dean hadn’t seen him in any of the usual areas, nor did he think the angel was in his room.

He found him in one of the annexes, surrounded by boxes of Men of Letters files and ancient scrolls and more than a handful of religious texts. No doubt, he was researching Nephilim. Dean leaned in the doorway, contentedly watching him pour over the documents before him. He didn’t know how long he stood there, before Cas eventually noticed his presence.

“Dean,” he said, rising from his chair.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean said, shaking himself from his thoughts and stepping into the room.

“How are you feeling? Sam mentioned something happened.”

“Don’t worry, my noggin is as good as new,” he said, tapping his temple lightly. Maybe not quite as good as new, as there was still a whisper of a headache clinging to him.

“Good.”

Dean took a step forward, his hand coming up to Cas’ cheek as he closed the distance between them. There wasn’t anything particularly romantic about this moment, surrounded by dusty old files and junk, but Dean was tired, and the week had been long, and he wanted this. He was tired of pretending he didn’t. There had been a time where he was so worried that Cas didn’t feel the same, and while their recent history had been an encouragement, it wasn’t until the onslaught of memories that he was really sure of anything.

He moved his hand along Cas’ chin, feeling the rough stubble under his fingers, while his other arm slipped between Cas’ shirt and coat, pulling him in. Cas kissed back with sleepy enthusiasm, his arms wrapped around Dean’s middle, holding him impossibly closer.

Dean didn’t know how long they remained like this, clinging to one another as they kissed themselves bruised and raw. Was it mere moments? An eternity?

Dean pulled away a fraction of an inch, Cas’ lips chasing after his own before Dean settled his forehead against the angel’s, their breath mingling between them. He was so full of want, indescribable in its intensity, but instead he said, “Tell me to stop.”

“Why?” Cas asked.

Dean’s eyes fluttered open; Cas’ own eyes were closed, and his breath ragged. Dean never wanted anyone in his life as much as he wanted this. He moved again, recapturing Cas’ lips with his own.

This, _this_ was the most he ever loved him.

“Perhaps we should relocate to your room though,” Cas said a moment later.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, pressing his lips to the spot where his neck met his jaw before Cas pulled him from the room.

The walk across the bunker wasn’t a long one, but it felt like forever, and Dean was trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to keep his hands off the angel—he didn’t want Sam to happen out of his room and find them. Not like this, not yet.

He fumbled with the door and pulled Cas in with him. He barely had time to toe off his shoes before Cas was pressed against him again, tugging at the buttons on his flannel.

 _Too many layers_ , he thought to himself, tugging Cas’ trench coat off his shoulders. Then he laughed. He had said exactly that the last time, hadn’t he, when they were awkwardly fumbling over each other in the back of the impala so many years ago.

“What?” Cas asked.

“Nothing,” Dean said, kissing him again, his lips curled in a smile. “Just a memory.”

Castiel kissed like he meant it, and he didn’t half-ass the rest of it either. It was the best sex Dean had had in a _long_ time, maybe even ever. It certainly ranked top of the list on the grounds that it was with _Cas_ , and it would’ve been great even if it was terrible.

“Shit, dude,” Dean said, breathing heavily as his head fell back to the pillow. “Where did you learn _that_?” On second thought, he might not have wanted an answer to that.

“I don’t sleep,” Cas reminded him. “There is ample time for research.”

“Research,” Dean repeated. He laughed, turning his head to look at him. “You mean porn. While Sam and I get in our daily requirement of z’s, you watch porn?” This was the best possible answer to the question he’d asked.

“Watch, read. There are even some interesting sexually explicit podcasts.”

Dean laughed again and rolled over to kiss him. “Dude, I so hope you did that on Sam’s laptop; the idea of it is too hilarious to ignore.”

Cas smiled. “Well, the things I found on your computer did not constitute good research.

Dean blushed. “Hey, there’s some good shit in there,” he said anyway. He thought about it for a moment. “There’s also some weird shit. Okay, I see your point.” Dean yawned.

“You should get some sleep,” Cas said. “You’ve had a long day.”

Dean nodded and turn on his side to face Cas, one arm stuffed under his pillow. “I know you don’t need to sleep,” he said. “So I won’t be offended if you wander off. But you can stay, if you want.” He hoped he would.

Cas turned, mirroring him. Dean smiled sleepily at him as his eyes drooped closed.

When he awoke the next morning, the other side of the bed was empty. But Dean smiled at the memory of the night before, and the random memory that floated by with it—a completely unrelated, simple and quiet moment in a random diner in the middle of somewhere.

Dean rolled out of bed and donned a robe and slippers. Not surprisingly, Cas had taken his clothes—trench coat and all—when he left, but he had also picked up Dean’s and thrown them in the hamper.

He wandered down the hall, finding Cas and Sam in the kitchen. Cas had busied himself with the coffee maker, and there was a large platter of bacon, eggs, and toast on the table. Though Sammy had served himself a plate, it sat abandoned next to his laptop, which had garnered all of his attention.

“Morning,” Dean said, announcing himself.

“Morning. Coffee maker’s broken,” Sam said, glancing up at him over the top of his computer. He grimaced and jammed his eyes shut. “ _Dude_ ,” he said.

“What?” He looked down and rolled his eyes, but tied his robe closed anyway. “Don’t be a prude. What’s wrong with the coffee maker?” he asked, sitting down and grabbing a piece of bacon.

“No one wants to see your junk while they’re eating breakfast.”

“The coffee maker is fixed now,” Cas said. “I think.” He shrugged hopelessly and sat down next to Dean as coffee seemed to start brewing.

“Speak for yourself, Sammy,” Dean said. “I’m sure there are plenty of people who would pay good money for that.” It was Sam’s turn to roll his eyes. “So, what’s the word?”

It was Sam’s turn to shrug, looking exasperated.

“Kelly Kline is still in the wind,” Cas said.

“I’ve been trying to map out contacts and possible safe houses, but… she worked for the president. She knows how to cover her tracks.”

They talked over breakfast, then eventually moved to the war room, where they continued the search for several hours, adding what little information they did find to the corkboard. It was an agonizingly slow process, and _christ_ , tracking down one living human should not have felt nearly as difficult as finding information on the Mark of Cain or the British branch of their secret society.

“Alright, I can’t look at this anymore,” Dean said, sliding his chair away from the table. He got up and paced around the bunker, texting his mom, then Claire, then glancing at the news. Anything to get out of the mind-numbing tedium of their current manhunt.

As luck would have it, he did find a case. _Thank_ god.

He circled back to Sam and Cas, finding them both looking even more miserable than when he’d left a few minutes before. “State fair is haunted,” he said, clapping his hands excitedly. “Who’s coming with me?”

Sam slammed his laptop shut. “I’m in,” he said.

Dean raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You know there’s probably gonna be clowns, right?”

“I’m about to gouge my eyes out,” Sam said. “Maybe I’ll get to shoot a clown. It’ll be cathartic.”

“Alrighty then. Cas?”

“I’ll continue here,” he said.

“Cas—” Sam started.

“I’m certain we’re close to something.”

Dean was certain they were close to brain rot, but knew Cas was determined to find Kelly. “We’ll bring you back some fried pickles.”

“That sounds disgusting.”

“Oh, it is,” Sam said.

“It is an American culinary _masterpiece_.”

“Do you think this might actually be just a ghost?” Sam asked as they walked through the crowds, standing out in their FBI monkey suits. “I can’t remember the last time it was _just_ a ghost.”

“I don’t know man,” Dean said. This might’ve been the most straightforward case they’d worked in years. Mabel Perth had died in an accident at the fair two years prior, and had come back to haunt the grounds, but only while the fair was going on. So far, no one else had died, but 6 workers and 2 guests had been injured. “Does the obit. say where she’s buried?” he asked, shoveling in the last huge bite of his fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.

“I can’t believe you are that thing,” Sam said, shaking his head.

“It’s so good, Sammy.”

“Okay, get this,” Sam said, looking back at his phone. “Mabel Perth was cremated.”

“So, what the hell is her spirit tethered to? Did they put up a memorial site?” Dean asked, eyeing up the carnival games as they passed children and couples winning such prizes as giant stuffed unicorns and inflatable guitars. A booth with enormous plush butterflies and bees caught his attention, but he continued along with his brother.

“It looks like the state did put up a plaque,” Sam said after a few moments.

As it turned out, the memorial site was just outside the actual fair, and Perth’s brother had been putting stuffed animals there on the anniversaries of her death, drawing her spirit back. 6 hours, one toy-burning, and a careful explanation of ghosts later, they were headed back to the car to leave the no longer haunted fair behind.

“Oh!” Dean said, tossing the keys to Sam. “I’ll catch up.” He swiveled and headed back toward the game booths. He watched a pair of kids try their hand at a game, but they failed to win their coveted butterfly, and glumly moved on to the next booth.

“How much for that?” Dean asked, pointing at one of the toys hanging along the top.

“One dollar to gets you four darts,” the woman said, smiling from ear to ear like her mouth was frozen that way. “Pop four balloons of the same color, you get your choice of prize.”

Dean rolled his eyes, catching sight of the kids now watching him. He set two bucks down on the table and picked up the 8 darts she laid down. One by one, he hit and popped 8 purple balloons. The kids’ jaws dropped. For Dean, there was little satisfaction in playing the game once he knew how to beat it, but their awed expressions did bring him a little spark of joy.

“Huh,” the booth worker said, looking between him and the wall of balloons like she wasn’t sure what just happened, but was too baked to really care.

“Butterfly, bumblebee,” he said, pointing to the stuffed toys he wanted. Standing end to end, the two combined were probably as tall as Sam. Dean passed the butterfly to the children, whose eyes grew, if possible, even wider.

“Thanks, mister!” one of them said, before they both ran off shrieking.

Dean smiled and walked back to the car, giant bumblebee tucked under his arm. He placed it upright in the back seat, earning a weird look from Sam, and seriously considered seat belting it in for the sheer absurdity, before climbing into the driver’s seat.

“So, what, are you _courting_ him now?” Sam asked, still looking at him strangely.

“Shut up,” Dean said, rolling his eyes.

Sam laughed as they drove away, bumblebee teetering over in the seat behind them.

Dean wasn’t a little disappointed when they were about halfway home and received a text from Cas, saying he was leaving the bunker to check on a lead. Nope, not disappointed at all.

They arrived home to a quiet bunker, and though Dean thought about putting the bee in Cas’ room, opted instead to leave it in a chair in the library, where he would actually see it when he returned.

“Dude, you’ve got it so bad,” Sam said, smiling as he shook his head.

Dean wanted to tell him where to shove it, but instead said, “yeah, I know.” It was better, now that he wasn’t hiding anything. Well, he wasn’t in any hurry to fill Sam in on the details recent changes in their sex life, but that had more to do with the fact that Sam actually _knew_ the person in question and it wasn’t just a nameless chick he’d picked up in a bar.

If Cas was gone for more than a few days, Dean would move the stupid bee to his room.

Cas, however, did return the following evening, looking tired and downtrodden as he came down the stairs.

“Find anything?” Dean asked, looking up from his computer.

“Does it look like I found anything?” Cas snapped.

Add irritable to the list. Dean might’ve said he was even hangry, if angels were capable of feeling hunger.

Cas sighed and slid into a chair across from Dean, slouching back in it like a grumpy teen. “I don’t understand how it can be so difficult to find one woman.”

“Nerds on the internet have been asking themselves the same question for years,” Dean said, smiling at his little joke, then rolled his eyes at the confused expression on Cas’ face.

“What is that?” Cas asked, cocking his head to one side as his eye caught something in the library.

Dean grinned. “Come on,” he said, trying not to sound too excited. He picked up the black and yellow toy and presented it to Cas, who continued to look at it as if there was something he was missing. “It’s from the fair,” Dean explained.

“It’s… for me?” he asked, reaching out tentatively.

“See anyone else here who likes bees as much as you?” Dean asked, pretending to look around for someone else. “Yeah, dumbass, it’s for you.”

Cas took it from Dean’s hands, studying it carefully, before wrapping his arms fully around it in what might otherwise be described as a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you, Dean,” he said, his voice slightly muffled as he buried his face in the fluff of the bumblebee. He picked his head up a moment later and wandered away.

Dean blinked several times, Cas’ behavior both puzzling and endearing. He shook his head. “I’ve got it so bad,” he said under his breath, then went back to what he’d been working on.

Cas returned a little bit later, still carrying the bee, though looking in higher spirits than he had when he’d first arrived. He sat down at the table, his chin resting on the bee now sitting in his lap, and got back to his search for Kelly.

He was still sitting like that when Sam joined them a while later. He smiled but didn’t say anything as he sat down.

Things were _unusually_ quiet. It was concerning how little monster activity was popping up on the radar.

Cas had left in the night, hoping he would have better luck tracking down Kelly by hitting the pavement, but Dean suspected it had more to do with needing to get out of the bunker. Sam and Dean were going stir crazy too, but Cas always seemed to struggle more with being cooped up for long periods.

“I think I found something,” Sam said.

“Kelly?” Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. “Haunting near Salt Lake City.”

“I’ll take it,” he said, desperate for anything that wasn’t these walls.

Mary called them to Colorado a week or so later, for a demon hunt to help out a friend. Things had been quiet on the demon front for a while, whether because Crowley was keeping them in check, or because they were still struggling with numbers after Amara, it didn’t really matter. The brothers were hungry for a demon hunt.

“Thanks for coming,” she said as Cas sidled up beside them. “I know you’re busy.”

“Well, not really,” Cas said, sounding somewhat defeated.

“No luck with Lucifer’s kid?” Sam asked, as if it was any surprise that Kelly continued to completely avoid all detection.

“Lucifer’s kid, that’s a joke, right,” Wally said, chuckling until he saw all of their straight faces. “Not a joke.” Wally seemed like a good guy, but he was in so far over his head.

They head into the diner to discuss the plan over dinner.

“Mandy. Is that short for Amanda?” Dean asked.

“Duh,” she said and huh. He’d lost it. Whatever charm he used to be able to turn on like a switch, was gone. He could make mixtapes and win carnival toys for his angel, but he couldn’t pretend to flirt with a waitress.

Whatever. He ordered his burger and moved on. He caught the waitress making bedroom eyes at Cas, who also caught her looking, but didn’t seem to understand _why_.

“How ‘bout you, handsome?” she asked.

Cas, who often forgot that he should order something to keep up appearances, picked something at random. The waitress smiled at him as she left to put in the order.

“Oh, she is into you,” Dean said as Wally made a sound of affirmation next to him. Maybe Dean should’ve been jealous or something, and if Mary’s warning tone was anything to go by, his behavior was at least somewhat inappropriate. Still, he didn’t feel at all threatened by the pretty waitress who shared his taste for awkward guys. “No, no, we’ve been looking for teachable moments.”

Mary tried to start on the case, but Sam went on complaining about the Wi-Fi and his nerd archive.

Dean made a loud, mocking snore. “Nobody cares,” he said, then directed the conversation back to Cas. “Here’s the thing you need to know about waitresses: they get hit on all day long, so you need to bring you’re a-game. But, upside, they always smell like food.”

“They _always_ smell like food,” Wally said, nodding in agreement. Dean knew he would like this guy.

“Why is the upside that they smell like food?” Sam asked, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Their voices rise and mingle in a cacophonous roar of conversation on the merits of smelling like food.

“Hey!” Mary exclaimed, silencing them all. “Screens down, eyes up, shut up,” she said, full mom-mode activated. There was a chorus of sheepish ‘sorry’s as they settled down to go over what Wally had found on the demon in town.

“Incoming,” Sam said, warning them to chill on the hunter-talk as the waitress returned.

“Hey Mandy, question for you,” Dean said, cracking a smile as Cas leaned over to sniff her. “My shy but devastatingly handsome friend here was just wondering: when do you get off?”

She smiled down at Cas. “Whenever I can.”

Holy _shit_. “Hey-o!” Dean said, as Sam and Wally stifled their laughter. “Point 1 for her.” Damn, he was kind of rooting for the chick. “Dropped _that_ on the table.”

“Right in front of all of us, too,” Wally said, grinning ear to ear.

They wait until sunset before heading out to the demon’s house to start laying the trap.

“You are such a dumbass,” Sam said as he and Dean climbed into the car. “What are you doing, shoving Cas at some rando waitress?”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Dean asked. Sam rolled his eyes but dropped it.

They were prepared—hell, they were _over_ -prepared. Wally might’ve been out of his depth on this one, but the Winchesters were not; three hunters and an angel were more than enough to take down a run-of-the-mill demon.

But it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill demon. Devil’s trap bullets were completely ineffective, demon knife and angel blade didn’t do anything but annoy him, and the devil’s trap on the floor didn’t slow him down.

And he’d done something to Cas unlike anything they’ve ever seen.

“Where’s Wally?” Mary asked

Sam shook his head, as they heard Cas groaning in pain. Dean pushed past Mary to check on him.

He thought nothing of it at first. “You look like hammered crap,” he said.

“Sound about right.”

Dean tried to get a look at his wounds, which Mary had already done her best to dress, but it wasn’t the wounds themselves that had him worried. It was the marks radiating out, like black tendrils under his skin.

“I’ve had worse,” he said, trying to keep things light. Trying not to show Cas that he was scared.

“Oh yeah? When?” Cas asked. He drew in a shaky breath. “Dean, something’s wrong. I can’t heal myself. I think the demon’s spear was poisoned… I think I’m dying.”

No. Not an option. “No,” he said. “You just need some time; you’ll heal up the old-fashioned way.” He wasn’t going to die. Not here. Not now.

Dean wasn’t ready.

He bit his lip and called Sammy over. Deep down, he knew… this might be it, ready or not.

Crowley actually looked… remorseful. “Hey, I was growing fond of the choir boy too,” he said.

“Shut up!” Dean snapped. “We don’t have time for your—for _you_. So either help us, or get the hell out of here.”

Not surprisingly, he left.

They should’ve killed him years ago. They should’ve let mom kill him now.

“How bad is it?” he asked turning his attention back to the dying angel. No, not dying. He wasn’t going to die here.

Cas tugged at this shirt and tie, revealing the poison black had moved up, covering most of his torso. “Crowley’s right, you should go.”

Like hell.

“No, you listen to me,” Cas said. “You—thank you. Knowing you, it’s been the best part of my life. And the things we’ve shared together, they have changed me.”

Dean looked down as the realization set in. He couldn’t do this.

“You’re my family,” Cas said. “I love you. I love all of you.” He was quiet, struggling though, as each of them tried to come to terms with what was happening. “Just, please,” he begged. “Don’t make my last moments be spent watching you die.” He told them to run, to save themselves.

“No,” Dean said. Like hell was he going to leave him behind.

“Yes! You need to keep fighting.”

“We are fighting,” Sam said. “For you.”

“And like you said, you’re family,” Dean said. “We don’t leave family behind.” This was going to break him, he knew. But he wasn’t going to leave Cas alone here. They weren’t.

They’d go down fighting first.

“We’re right here, buddy,” Sam said. He’d gotten the kill on Ramiel, smoked him right to dust, which was a shame because Dean would’ve _really_ liked to feel the life leave his body.

But none of that mattered, because this was it. Cas was spilling black ooze, dying right before their eyes.

“What do we do?” Sam asked, turning to Dean, who just shrugged. He was lost.

The bright glow started behind them, growing to encompass Castiel in _blinding_ blue light. When it finally faded, Crowley was left holding the broken spear, and Cas was—

Healed.

Sam and Dean turned to Crowley, shocked and confused and… shocked.

“Oh. You’re welcome,” he said before vanishing. The broken spear clattered to the ground.

“Let’s go home.”

They didn’t all go home though. Mary had said something about another hunter friend needing help, and though Dean had offered their help, she declined and all-but shooed them away. He was getting used to their mom being a hunter, but he wasn’t completely sure how he felt about it. He knew she could handle herself, and she seemed to have made enough new hunter friends that she at least had backup, but…

But he still wanted her to be there more than she was.

Sam had offered to drive Cas’ truck back home that night, but the angel had declined, saying he was ‘fine’ despite the rough spin cycle Ramiel had put him through. Dean drove slower than usual, keeping a close eye on his headlights in the rear-view mirror.

Cas did seem mostly fine by the time they got home, if somewhat more tired than he usually was, and though his physical wounds had healed up, his clothes had not repaired themselves.

“We should get you some backup clothes,” Dean said. He handed him a neatly stacked change of clothes—a pair of sweatpants and a blue flannel.

Castiel looked at him with a furrowed brow. “But I like my clothes,” he said. He looked down at his tattered suit and coat. “I see your point.”

“Get changed up, we’ll run your stuff through the wash.” Ordinarily, he might’ve said they were a lost cause, the blood would never come out and it probably wasn’t even worth repairing the holes, but Cas could probably fix them up completely once he was back to full strength. More importantly, they were part of him.

Cas joined them in the war room a little bit later, as Sam and Dean started to dig into a bucket of fried chicken.

“Hey, look at you,” Sam said, grinning ear-to-ear. “You look like a real hunter!”

Cas looked down at his new attire with an unreadable expression. “Thank you, I think.”

“Take the compliment, dude.”

They sat in mostly silence for a while, drinking beer and eating. Even Cas nibbled at a piece of chicken but seemed more favorable to the taste of the beer.

“Are you sure you’re okay, man?” Sam asked.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just drained.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“My grace will replenish.”

“Maybe you should try to get some sleep,” Sam suggested.

Cas would eventually take that suggestion, and when Dean went to check on him later, he found him asleep in his almost-barren room, arms curled around his giant stuffed bee and he snored lightly.

A small smile tugged at the corner of Dean’s mouth, but still he worried.

Angels weren’t supposed to sleep.

Cas was _alive,_ which was honestly the best possible outcome for how the day had gone, and it was thanks to Crowley, of all people. But Cas was weak, and he was worried about what that might mean.

He didn’t sleep much that night, his mind racing far too quickly to let him rest. He was wide awake, scrolling through newspapers on his phone—he wasn’t planning to ride off on a hunt just yet, but this was an old habit that wasn’t likely to go away. There was a light knock at the door at 3:14am.

“Yeah?” he said, sitting up as Cas slid the door open. “You okay, buddy?” he asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I just… couldn’t sleep. I knew you were awake.”

Dean patted the spot next to him, scooting over to make room.

“I will be fine,” Cas assured him, sitting down. He must’ve shown the worry he was feeling. “My grace was just more taxed than I initially realized.”

“You’re sure you’re okay though?”

Cas nodded. “I think sleep would help, but I just _can’t_. I struggled with it as a human too.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to quiet your mind,” Dean said, nodding. He was far from the poster child of a healthy sleep routine. “What do you need?”

Cas opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking uncertain. Before Dean could say any more, the angel’s lips were pressed to his. Dean’s hand came up to his back, holding him there. “Is it true that the release of endorphins helps with sleep?”

Dean chuckled. “Are you asking if we can have sex so you can sleep?”

“Yes.”

Dean kissed him again. “Nothing fancy this time though. I’ll take care of you, make you feel good, and then you’re gonna sleep, okay?”

Cas nodded, letting Dean guide him down to the mattress. Dean hovered over him, kissing him, until he could feel Cas getting impatient. Dean shushed him softly, sliding his hand under the waistband of his sweats—Dean’s sweatpants, still hugging Cas’ hips, a fact which made everything that much better. He gently glided his fingers over Cas’ length, and Dean smiled as the angel let out a contented little sigh.

What he _wanted_ to do was tear off everything, bite his nipples and have his dirty way with him. But this wasn’t about that, not right now, so he settled for nibbling on his earlobe as he stroked him to full hardness. Cas’ eyes fluttered closed as he writhed beneath Dean.

He kissed him on the mouth again, licking and biting at his lower lip. Ozone and cherry balm. “Hips,” he said. Cas lifted his hips of the mattress, rutting against him as he did. Dean pushed his sweats down, freeing him, before sliding down, positioning himself between his legs. Cas watched him intently as he placed a gentle kiss to his head before swallowing him whole.

He let out a deep moan, his head falling back to the pillow as Dean worked him over, and Dean… Dean could almost do this forever. Cas under him, twitching and writhing and making those sweet little noises. It was enough to bring the lazy hard-on in his shorts up to full mast. He pulled off, licking up the droplets of precum as they formed. “Come on, buddy,” he said. “Relax. Just let it go.” He brought him back to his mouth, hollowing his cheeks as he went down. Up, and down, and up, and… Cas came on Dean’s lips, and Dean took it all like a champ, drinking in every last drop like his life depended on it.

Dean pulled Cas’ pants back, covering him up. “Better?” he asked.

Eyes still closed, Cas nodded, and Dean took a lot of pride in the completely blissed out look on his face. He kissed his neck before rolling back to his side of the bed, fisting his hand into his shorts.

“Can I…” Cas asked, turning to look at him.

“Next time,” Dean promised. He was already so close as it was, and Cas was supposed to be _sleeping_. Nevertheless, Cas watched him intently as he strokes himself off, one, two, three, and he came in his shorts. “Go back to sleep,” he said.

Cas nodded again, rolling to face away from him. Dean took the invitation and turned as well, resting one arm over the angel’s waist. Later, he would regret the mess he’d left in his shorts, but at that moment, he couldn’t care enough to move.

When Dean woke the next morning (or, rather, several hours later), Cas was looming over him, straddling his hips, grinding slightly as he waited for him to wake. “Cas?” he asked groggily.

Cas kissed him. “I’m feeling much better,” he said. “I think your mouth might have healing properties.”

Dean snorted. “Have you been watching more porn?” he asked.

“No,” he said. “But I would like to fuck you again, if that’s okay.”

“Shit, Cas,” he breathed out, thrusting against him slightly. “Yeah.” _Of course_.

Cas kissed him again, tugging at his shirt, and his shorts, and _jesus,_ how did his hands seem to be everywhere at once? His mouth too. And every inch he touched was burning hot with desire. Within moments, it seemed, their clothes were gone, fallen to the floor forgotten. Cas kissed him hard, distracting him as he gently pressed into him, first one finger, then a second. He continued to work him open until Dean was leaking onto his stomach, begging him to get the show on the road.

Cas obliged, quickly replacing his fingers, and bottoming out in one glorious motion.

Dean let out a low moan.

He could get used to this, waking up and getting screwed senseless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gone back and forth on whether I should put a content warning with this chapter. In general, I think the Mature rating is enough, but this definitely dipped into Explicit. I've elected not to do a warning for now, but if anyone thinks that I should, for the sake of other readers, I will happily do so.
> 
> Anyway, I did not set out to have an entire chapter dedicated to Destiel fluff and angst and smut, but here we are! And in a delightful sort of kismet, this chapter is 6900 words 🤣


	14. You'll Find Shelter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! I did not mean to leave this for a full week, but I got so caught up in all the possibilities for Carry On and writing random cute things... and then caught up in utter rage at the absolute butchering of Dean Winchester and the undermining of found family...
> 
> Anyway, I'm claiming Dean Winchester as my own and they can't have him back.

When Mary showed up with burgers and beer, it felt like a peace offering, a ‘sorry I’ve been away so long, but I’m home now’. Dean even felt comfortable enough to jab about it as he crammed his mouth with fries. Things had been touch-and-go for a while there, and it had taken time to get used to everything—from her being alive, to her hunting, to their place in each other’s lives. Maybe she wouldn’t make her home in the bunker as they had, but they were both thrilled to have her there, for however long it might be.

But instead of whatever they might’ve thought she was there for, neither of them expected her to say “I’ve been working with the British Men of Letters.” Great. These fries tasted like corruption and bribery.

Sam stuttered. “You what?”

But Dean… Dean couldn’t even muster up the surprise. “Ah.” It wasn’t that he knew or expected that exact revelation, but he wasn’t surprised. Parental disappointment was just par for the course, wasn’t it?

And she would try to justify it, wouldn’t she? She tried to make it seem like it was the _hard_ decision, but ultimately the _right_ thing, and he just. Didn’t fucking care. They didn’t need the Brits resources, they had their own; they worked well, really well, with what they had.

He let Sam do the talking, first, because he was the one who’d been hurt most by them, and second, because Dean did not trust himself to say a damn thing. He was trying to get better about things like ‘thinking before he speaks’.

No, screw this. They had more years hunting under their belt than she did. She had no right to come in here and act like they were on the wrong side here. She may have birthed him, but she hadn’t raised him, he’d _raised himself, dammit_ , and Sammy too.

Dean was pissed. He was pissed, and hurt, and he thought maybe, _maybe_ , he was overreacting. But Sam, calm and level-headed Sam, was right there with him, fuming at his side. Did Mary understand how mad they were? Surely she could see that they were upset, but she didn’t know them half as well has they knew each other. If she had, maybe this wouldn’t have gone so far.

“I’m doing this for you,” she said. “I’m playing three decades of catch-up here.”

And what the fuck was her point supposed to be. “How do you think this has been for us?” he asked, his nostrils flaring. He wasn’t going to take this from her, not after _everything_. “We’re your sons and you’ve been gone. Our whole lives, you’ve been gone. You said you needed time, no you said you needed _space_. So we gave you your space. But you didn’t need just space, you needed space _from us_.” He felt bad, doing this in front of Sammy; he didn’t deserve to bear witness to this, but _dammit_ neither of them deserved this.

“That’s not true. Dean, I’m trying—”

“How ‘bout for once you just try being a mom?”

“Dean, I am your mother, but I am not just a mom. And you’re not a child.”

“I never was,” he said. God, he wasn’t even asking her to give up hunting and be their full-time mom; he just wanted her to act like a mom _sometimes_. “So, between us and them—”

“It’s not like that.”

“Yeah, Mary, it is.” He could see that he hurt her. Good. “And you made your choice.” Disappointment all around. They’d really hit the jackpot on shitty parents, didn’t they? “So there’s the door.” And then he walked away.

He half expected Sammy to try to play peacemaker, as he was wont to do these days, but instead he heard his brother on his heels, leaving Mary to fuck right off for all he cared.

He stopped when he reached the kitchen, pouring himself two fingers of whiskey, then a second glass for Sam.

“I’m sorry,” he said, taking a long sip. For what, he wasn’t quite sure. For yelling at her, for going overboard? For doing it in front of him? For Mary being such a colossal fucking disappointment?

Maybe all of the above.

Sam shook his head. “I’m just as pissed as you.” He set down his glass and reached out to hug Dean. “You and me, against the world, right?”

“You know what, _you_ find us a case,” he said, slamming his laptop shut. “’Cause I need to hit something. Now.” It had been days and he was still pissed.

“You wanna talk about it?” Sam asked.

No. No, he didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted to gank something. “Not really.” Maybe he was just tired. Tired of getting his hopes up. Tired of thinking _family_ meant something only to have it shoved back at him like an unwanted obligation. “What was she thinking, man?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask her.”

“What?”

There was Peacekeeper Sam, willing to forgive far easier than Dean ever could.

“I need a drink,” he said, grabbing his coat and heading for the door. His plan was to get some air, drive around until he found a decent bar to get trashed at.

Instead he just kept driving.

He was a hundred miles away when the phone rang.

“Hey, Cas,” he said, tapping the speaker.

“ _What’s wrong_?”

“What?” he asked. How the hell did Cas _always_ know.

“ _What’s wrong?_ ” he repeated more sternly.

“How do you know something’s wrong?”

“ _Aside from your tone and obvious irritability, I could hear your distress from a thousand miles away.”_

Shit, that was twice in just a handful of days. He’d called Cas first, then, and told him what happened, but he had already known something was wrong before he called. He really needed to get a handle on that. Or he just needed to stop letting Mary get to him.

“Just more of the same,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry I bothered you.”

“ _You don’t have to apologize_ ,” Cas said. “ _I only wish this wasn’t so hard for you._ ”

“Am I being unreasonable?” he asked.

“ _I don’t know_ ,” Cas said, and Dean could picture the look of uncertainty on his face. “ _I’ve never had a mother, I had no concept of needing one. But my father,_ Chuck _, was not what I expected.”_

“Yeah,” Dean said. Maybe he’d had too many expectations of Mary, maybe it was unfair to want her to be more than she was.

It didn’t change how he felt.

Dean showed up on Jody’s doorstep, not for the first time, unannounced.

“Hey,” she said, smiling and stepping aside to welcome him in. “’Fraid you just missed the girls.”

“That’s okay, I talked to Claire a few days ago. I came to see you.”

Jody peered past him, surprised not to see Sam trailing behind. “Where’s you’re other half?”

“He’s back at home still. I, uh, I kinda made a special trip.” He scratched his head uncomfortably.

“Oh.” She furrowed her brow in contemplation. “Okay, then.” She smiled then, leading him into the living room. “Can I grab you a beer?”

“That’d be great,” he said.

“So,” she said, passing him a bottle then taking a swig from her own. “You wanna do the small talk, or cut right to what’s bothering you?”

Dean scoffed. “Why does something have to be bothering me?”

“It doesn’t—if you’d dropped by on the way home. But you already said you made a special trip, which means you wanted to talk, and felt like you couldn’t do it over the phone.”

“You’re a smart lady,” Dean said. Jody smiled and shrugged; she was a sheriff, a hunter, and mother to two teenagers. “I really just needed to clear my head,” he said. Clear his head for 5 hours and then hang out with the woman who’d _actually_ been there when he needed her.

She had said she would listen if he ever needed to talk, and he wanted to take her up on that, hell, he was _here_ wasn’t he? But he had no idea what to say.

“Wanna watch some Netflix?” she asked. “There’s a new show I’ve been wanting to check out.”

“Sure, what’cha got?”

“You like westerns, right?” she asked, reaching for the remote.

“Hell yeah,” he said, nodding.

“I am _a little_ worried this one might be a little too much like your day job,” she said, clicking through her queue. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

The fictional descendent of Wyatt Earp was an absolute dumpster fire of a human being who Dean immediately liked, then kind of hated, and then felt really uncomfortably _familiar_ with.

“You ever see something that so terrifyingly looks like your life that it kinda freaks you out?” he asked.

“I can turn it off.”

“I didn’t say that,” he said, putting his hand on the remote to stop her. “But _holy fuck_.” Nerdy little sibling, dead family, early childhood trauma, hunting monsters. It was all there. They got some of the monster details wrong, but they also got some right. The whole thing was surreal.

He looked down at his phone when a message buzzed in from Cas. **How does one feel like a plastic bag? I don’t understand.**

A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. **It’s a metaphor,** he said. **Turn that shit off. I made sure you had good music; you have no excuses.**

**It’s playing in the coffee shop,** Cas replied. And the a few moments later, he said, **Also, I like it. It feels powerful.**

He rolled his eyes, but the smile deepened. He adored this dumbass.

“Jody,” he said, putting the phone down.

“Yeah?”

“If I tell you something kinda serious, you promise not to kick me out on my ass?”

“Promise,” she said. He hoped she meant it. She reached over and paused the show, turning her full attention to him.

He looked into his now-empty beer bottle. “It’s not that big of a deal,” he said, trying to deflect some of that attention. “But I guess it kind of is, and you’re the most important person in my life who doesn’t know, so…” He trailed off. It hadn’t been his hard before, with Sam or Mary—then again, they had both _asked_ , taking some of the pressure off. This? He was doing this to himself. And for what, to maybe lose another parental figure?

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Jody said. “Take your time.”

“I’m bi,” he said finally. God, it sounded so stupid. “I mean, I like guys. Girls, too, still, just…” What the hell was he doing? Here he was, almost forty, awkwardly trying to come out to his not-mom. What the hell?

Jody got up from her chair and sat down next to him, pulling him into a hug. He clung to her, not realizing until then how much he needed it. For all his complaining and deflection, he was a tactile person. Sometimes he just needed the comfort; but he and Sammy weren’t really huggers, not unless shit got bad, and Mary… well, she didn’t seem to be very physically affectionate at all. He wasn’t sure if it was just since her return, or if she had always been that way.

“I’m proud of you,” she said, kissing his temple. He relaxed in her arms.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice muffled in her shoulder. “Sorry I kinda… made a big deal out of nothing.”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “It is a big deal, and I’m grateful that you trusted me enough to share. I’m just sorry that you worried I might react differently.”

Dean held onto her a few moments longer, then sat back into the couch, relaxing.

“So, when do I get to meet him?”

“Meet who?” Dean asked, genuinely confused.

Jody rolled her eyes. “Whatever guy you were texting who’s so important to you that you stopped everything to tell me.”

Dean smiled sheepishly. “Alright, fair enough. It’s Cas,” he said finally. It wasn’t like it was a secret anymore—not that it had ever been, apparently.

“The angel?” Jody asked. “Claire’s father?”

Dean grimaced. “Yeah, maybe don’t tell her that,” he said. Claire and Cas were on good terms these days, but that was still a whole other thing.

“Yeah, you boys can field that one. Question still stands though: am I gonna meet him?”

Dean frowned. “How in the hell have you two never met?” They’d known both of them a damn long time, and with Cas’, albeit weird, relationship with Claire, it seemed impossible that their paths hadn’t crossed at some point.

“Hell if I know,” she said. “I hear Claire talking to him regularly, but he’s never come by. He knows he’s allowed to, right? If he wants, if she wants. He’s welcome.”

“I’ll make sure he knows,” Dean said, nodding.

By the time he got back to the bunker, Sam was gone and that dick Ketch was waiting in the wings to seduce him with scotch and hunting.

And then shit hit the fan.

The thing was… she was still his mom. All the shit, they could get past it. It wasn’t necessarily gonna be easy but couldn’t turn his back on her. She was family, and even if she wasn’t the person he thought she’d be, he wasn’t what she expected either, and…

Yeah. They could find a way through this.

When Sammy revealed that he’d been getting intel from the Brits for _two weeks_ , Dean was… hurt. He was hurt, but he wasn’t pissed.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you,” Sam said. “And I’m sorry, man, I…” He sounded defeated, like he was just waiting for the coming storm.

“Okay,” Dean said. Maybe he was just too tired to be angry, or maybe it was because he trusted Sam’s judgement. It was, perhaps, a double standard to trust Sam with the exact same shit he’d frozen Mary out over, but Sam had _earned_ that trust, time and again.

“Okay?”

“What do you want me to say?” He didn’t want to fight. “Do I like it? No. Do I trust them? _Hell_ , no.” But they worked with people they didn’t trust all the time; they’d been working with Crowley for years. What were a few shady humans compared to the King of Hell and his mother?

So yeah, they could take advantage of the extra resources and keep a closer eye on the little shits, and maybe, just maybe, be ready for it when all hell broke loose.

Mom visited them _almost_ regularly. She was still living out of a motel near the Brit’s warehouse, and spent a great deal of time hunting—but then again, so did they.

“This is nice,” Sam said, as they sat around the kitchen table, eating a meal from their favorite pizza joint in town.

“Almost normal,” Dean agreed. It was so almost normal that it felt downright weird.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.

He had suspected Claire was hunting in secret, probably had been for months, so it came as no surprise when they found her working the case they were on. She played it off like Jody was in the loop, but Dean knew she was full of shit, and Sam probably did too. He didn’t like it, but he understood it. Not hunting, once you know what was out there, wasn’t an option for people like them.

And she was a better hunter than Mick Davies, that was for sure.

He shot off a text to Sam, telling him what Mick had done, and within moments his phone was ringing.

“ _Get back to the hotel,_ now,” Sam said, far more urgently that seemed necessary for the situation. “ _Claire was bitten_.”

Shit.

Shit shit shit.

It was only a ten-minute drive back, but Dean probably worked himself into a panic and back out a dozen times, all the while ignoring the grade-a asshole in the seat next to him.

She could live with this. It would be fine. Kate and Garth both managed it, she could too.

He might have to kill Mick to keep him from murdering her too, but he would do it in a heartbeat.

She could get through this.

He was going to have to tell Cas what happened on his watch.

He was going to have to tell _Jody_.

Shit.

When they got back to the hotel, Sam was just finishing up bandaging her. Dean opened his mouth, then closed it again, uncertain what to say. Asking ‘is she okay?’ or ‘how bad is it?’ were astoundingly stupid options; he knew she wasn’t okay, and it didn’t matter how bad it was, she was still bitten.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked up at him and let out a gut-wrenching sob. “I’m sorry,” she cried, turning away from him.

“Hey, come here,” he said, wrapping his body around her. “This is not your fault.” He held on to one of her hands as he kissed her forehead, then pressed his other hand to her cheeks. She felt impossibly warm. “We gotta cool her off, she is burning up.”

“No, keep her warm,” Mick said.

Sam and Dean both rounded on him. He got no say in this. He’d already killed one kid, they weren’t letting him near Claire.

“How long have I got, until…” she started to ask.

“Sometimes it takes a full moon,” Sam said. “Sometimes it just takes time.”

Claire sniffed back more tears as Sam went to hit the books. Dean kneeled down in front of her, taking both her hands in his. “Hey, listen to me,” he said softly. Shit, he was so fucking scared. “Nobody said this was going to be easy, okay, but you can live with this.”

“No way,” she said, shaking her head.

“So, you have to stay locked up a few nights a month, okay,” he said, doing his best to put on a brave face for her. “The rest of the time you’re you.”

“Unless I break out,” she said. “Maybe some people can control this, but—” She shook her head. “I can barely keep it together on a good day.”

And Dean had been there before, had been exactly where she was. He remembered how the Mark made him feel, how afraid he had been when he was in his right mind, of what he might do when he wasn’t.

“If there’s any chance that I could hurt Jody, or Alex. Or anyone. I’d rather die.”

Dean could feel his heart break. He remembered that feeling too. He would’ve died in a heartbeat, rather than hurt his family.

But this was _Claire_. She was just a kid, and maybe she wasn’t his kid, but he loved her and _like hell_ was he going to let go of her.

Mick and Sam argued over something in the book, a possible cure. Hope.

“You never tested it on humans?” Sam asked.

“Once. The subject died, in agony.”

So, not an option.

“Maybe second time’s the charm,” Claire said.

“No, no, you don’t get a vote in this,” Dean said.

“It’s my life,” she said. “I get all the votes.”

“Sam, you wanna back me up here?”

“It’s her life,” Sam said, sounding defeated. And what the _hell_? They were just supposed to let her try this 1-in-a-billion cure that had no evidence of even working? And let her _die_ if it didn’t?

If the roles were reversed, he knew he would’ve taken the risk; he was more than willing to go for the long-shot when it was his life on the line, but Claire…

“I bet you think this is a great solution, hmm?” he asked, turning on Mick again. “It works, or she dies. Either way, one less monster, right?”

“I don’t think there’s any great solutions here.”

“Dean, please,” she begged. “I can’t.”

Dean took a deep breath. What the hell was he supposed to do? “Alright.”

Claire writhed and sobbed, growling and snarling inhumanly. She was in too much pain to attack them, now that the serum was trying to reverse what she had turned into.

They watched. They waited.

“I need to get some air,” Dean said. He couldn’t take anymore. He stepped outside and took a deep breath, but the cool night air did nothing to make him feel better. “Cas,” he said, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I… Fuck, I hope she survives this, but if…” He couldn’t even think about the alternative.

Sam’s voice called him back inside and his worst fears were met there—Claire, no longer moving, no longer breathing.

Then, by some miracle, her claws began to retract, and her chest started to move again. Dean let out the breath he’d been holding.

“You guys look like shit,” she said.

“Speak for yourself, kid,” Sam said, pulling her into a hug.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Sam asked when she met up with them outside the hotel.

“Honestly? Sort of craving a milk-bone right now.” She laughed.

“You gonna tell Jody what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Whatever you decide, we’ve got your back. On one condition. If you’re gonna play hunter barbie alone, you let us know. Even if it’s just a text, tell one of us where you are, what you’re working on. That way, if something goes wrong, we can come find you.”

She nodded in agreement and bounced a little on her heels. “Deal.”

“Come here,” Dean said, reaching out to her. She didn’t hesitate to launch herself into his arms. “Love you, kiddo,” he said into her hair.

“Love you, too,” she said, to his surprise.

With the unknown due date of Lucifer’s spawn rapidly approaching, and Cas being incommunicado, things were turning into an all-hands-on-deck sort of situation. They had reached out to damn near every hunter they knew, putting out feelers across the country for _anything_ that might’ve been a sign of Kelly or Dagon.

It was Eileen who finally found something they had missed, and tracked it down a rabbit hole.

“Bye, Sam,” she said.

He whispered a ‘Bye’ back at her, waving as the call disconnected.

“That’s cute,” Dean said, smiling.

“Come on.”

“Don’t get all embarrassed,” Dean said. “Its great you guys have gotten so close.” They’d both been messaging her off and on over the last year or so, but it was Sam who had picked up more sign language, and Sam who she flirted with every time.

“Shut up,” Sam said, rolling his eyes.

“Turnabout is fair play, man. I’m gonna milk this for all it’s worth.” Besides, he had to find some way to distract himself from the fact that they hadn’t heard from Cas in over a week.

He was starting to get worried.

The hadn’t looped the Brits in on the whole mess, and even Mom had agreed that the Kelly situation was probably too sensitive to get them involved. But they were at the end of their ropes, running out of time and resources, so when Mick showed up in their home (seriously, they were going to have to get the whole place re-keyed), going on about some cosmic shockwave…

They silently agree to bring him up to speed.

“Nephilim.”

“You knew? How?”

Well, it certainly helped that they sometimes had an angel in their pocket.

And then Mick, not surprisingly, gave them grief for not murdering an innocent woman and her unborn child.

Sure, that child was the literal _spawn of Satan_ , but Kelly hadn’t done anything wrong here.

They had agreed that they would find another way. _This_ was why they didn’t clue in the Brits. They didn’t care about people, only killing monsters.

“Do you have any idea what will happen if this abomination is born?” Mick asked.

“We’re handling it, alright? We’ll find her,” Sam said.

“Until then, I say we drink,” Dean said, raising the bottle of scotch and smiling manically.

“ _This is my voicemail. Make your voice a mail_.”

“Come on, Cas, I’ve called you three times now.” Three times today, several more over the last week. Cas still hadn’t returned his calls. “Will you call me back? We’ve got line on Dagon.” Hopefully the prospect of finding them would be enough to get a response out of him.

But it wasn’t, and shit, once again, hit the fan. They had been _so_ close, had Kelly once again in their hands, and Dagon had still gotten them away.

“You heard from Cas yet?” Sam asked the morning after.

“No. Still MIA.” He was going crazy, not knowing. It was completely in character for him to disappear for extended periods of time, but he usually checked in more regularly. He’d been quiet too long, and gone even longer.

“You think he’s alright?”

Dean couldn’t afford to think about that. “I don’t know.” He was tired, and he was worried, and it would be far too easy to let himself get lost in those feelings. So he did his best to ignore it, to believe that Cas had broken his phone, or forgot to charge it, or _something_. Anything that meant he wasn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere. “Where’s Eileen?”

“She took off,” Sam said, sounding a little disappointed. So Cas wasn’t the only one who’d taken off.

“Said she’s headed back to Ireland for a while. Just needed some time, I guess.”

He called Cas, again and again. He didn’t answer, he didn’t answer, didn’t text, didn’t give any indication that he’d been getting any of his messages.

“ _Make your voice a mail._ ” Dean wanted to scream every time he listened to that message.

“Cas, it’s me. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days.” He gave him a brief rundown, just in case he _was_ getting his messages, and hung up, sighing heavily. “Call me back.”

“Still no luck with Cas?” Sam asked, his brow furrowed in concern.

“Still AWOL.”

“Alright, so let’s find him.”

As if Dean hadn’t tried that. He’d tried pinging his GPS _days_ ago. “There’s nothing in the system about some weird guy in a trench coat getting arrested or turning up dead.” He supposed that was good news, but it didn’t feel like good news.

He pulled the Colt from its holster, hidden under the table, and began cleaning it.

“Dean, it’s Cas,” Sam said, no doubt seeing right through his attempts to remain calm about the whole thing. “This isn’t the first time he’s dropped off the map, and whatever’s happening, he’ll be fine. He always is.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, willing himself to believe it.

He watched the waitress attentively, only half listening to Sam rambled about the local lore on whatever thing was off killing people in town. He needed some kind of distraction.

“Dude, focus,” Sam said, clearly irritated.

“I am focused,” Dean said, his eyes still on the waitress. “Yeah, Black Bill. What do you got?”

Sam rolled his eyes and continued on, looking over his shoulder as Dean’s eyes followed behind him.

Dean redirected his attention back to the case. “So we’ve got a goat dude with a name like a pirate, which is a little insane even for us.” God’s sister had brought their mom back from the dead after deciding not to end the world, and Dean really, really wanted his angel to come back home so they could have sex and then save the world from Lucifer’s yet unborn child. Crazy was relative, but this was still pretty up there. “Don’t wait up,” he said, picking up his mug and approaching the waitress.

“Don’t do the hot coffee thing—” he heard Sammy say.

“Boy, this coffee is hot,” he said, electing to completely ignore him. “Kind of like…” He winked at her.

It wasn’t like he planned to do anything. There was nothing wrong with a little harmless flirting to take the edge off. But when she told him she was off in an hour, a seductive look in her eye, and asked him to go somewhere, it didn’t feel harmless anymore.

“I can’t.” He shook his head. “I kind of have a boyfriend,” he said, surprising himself. They hadn’t put a name to this, and ‘boyfriend’ sounded equal parts weird and kind of right.

She looked past him, at Sam was had just left the diner, her brow raised. “Bummer,” she said.

“No, no,” he said quickly. “That’s my brother. Cas is… away on business right now.”

“Still, bummer,” she said, leaning on her elbows. “I always wanted a gay best friend, though.”

Dean rolled his eyes. Being mistaken for gay wasn’t unfamiliar territory (nor was it even completely untrue), but this was a new one even for him.

“We could go shopping or hit a movie,” she continued on. What the hell had he gotten himself into? He just wanted to _flirt_.

“You know what,” he said. “Sure.” If things got really bad, he could make a drinking game out of it.

Much to his surprise though, it wasn’t bad. He tagged along with her to a few stores, playing up the role of GBF, and took a couple swigs from his flask only when memories of Charlie bubbled to the surface.

She later dragged him back to her place to watch movies, and they get wasted playing drinking games with whatever god-awful sci-fi movies were playing—Sharknado, followed by Stonehenge Apocalypse, and then another Sharknado.

Much to his surprise, the whole thing was kind of… fun? Clean, mostly PG fun.

Not that he was ever going to let Sam know that.

And seeing the look of discomfort on his little brother’s face when he played up the awesomeness of their bizarre little adventure? So worth it.

“Next time you hear me say our family is messed up,” Dean said. “Remind me that we could be psycho goat people.” Seriously, what the _fuck_?

It did leave him wondering though… Their family was cursed. They hadn’t made a deal quite like the goat people, but they had made deals, and they were stuck in a nigh unescapable loop of tragedy. At that moment, things seemed, well, remarkably okay, but it was still early and disaster was no doubt on the horizon, what with a devil child on the way. “What do you think our legacy will be?” he asked. “I mean, when we’re gone, after all the stuff we’ve done. Do you think folks will remember us? You know, like a hundred years from now.”

“No,” Sam said honestly.

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“I mean, guys like us aren’t exactly the type of people they write about in history books, you know?”

That was true, but it wasn’t exactly what he’d meant. But hunters already told stories about them, maybe he kind of hoped that, when they were dead and gone, those stories would continue. Like Samuel Colt or Wyatt Earp.

“But the people we save,” Sam went on. “They’re our legacy. They’ll remember us, and then I guess, we’ll eventually fade away too.”

Suddenly the thought _terrified_ him. Not death, death was something they faced on a regular basis, and while it had been a while, years maybe, since he’d actually found himself wanting to die, he still knew that it would one day come, and maybe sooner than they’d like. That didn’t scare him so much. What shook him was the prospect of _being forgotten_.

“But that’s fine. Because we left the world better than we found it,” Sam said.

That was true, and maybe put him at ease a little. Maybe they would be forgotten, but their mark on the world wouldn’t. They had changed the course of everything, saved the world time and again. And maybe no one _knew_ what they had done, but they had still done it.

“I wonder what’s gonna happen to this place,” Dean said, looking at the stacks of books and lore around them. “After we’re gone, you think some hunter will move in, keep fighting the fight?”

“Yeah, I hope so.”

“Me too.” Maybe Claire, one day, when she was tired of being on the road but still wanted to hunt. He smiled to himself. He hoped maybe that day would come while he was still here to see it.

This place was their home, the only real home they’d had, aside from Baby. He pulled out his pocketknife. They had left their mark there, a permanent reminder that they had been there.

“What are you doing?” Sam asked as Dean took the blade to the table.

“Leaving our mark.” He smiled at the whisper of a memory and passed the knife to Sammy. The two of them, far too young, carving their initials into the back of the car. They’d been through a lot in 30 years, both together and apart, but still always found their way back to each other. He knew, in his head, that hunters didn’t often get a long, happy life, but in his heart, he hoped they might get another 30 years of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're now reaching the point where I don't have much written for future chapters. Most of chapter 15 is done, but there's a few scenes I haven't even started, and after that, I've only got random scenes for random chapters done, so updates will probably be even more sporadic.
> 
> And now I'm nearing a crossroads. I knew when s15 resumed, my plans would be joss'ed, though I thought there was a possibility that I could still work everything in in somehow, though maybe not how I'd hoped. And then Despair happened, and it kind of threw any possibility of that out the window. And then Carry On happened and I said FUCK IT. There is going to be a canon divergence at some point, and now I have genuinely no idea where I'm gonna put it. I had scenes written around The Trap, but now I'm not even sure I want to follow the canon that far - but then again, if I do follow at least to Game Night/Absence, then The Trap is the logical road to follow.
> 
> I digress. I'm getting ahead of myself. I still have one more chapter in the s12 arc, and I'm thinking the s13 arc is going to be another 4+ chapters, so I guess I'll just figure out how to cross that bridge once I get a little closer to it.


End file.
